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FeedMake Room for Rover
Lovely landscapes and happy dogs can co-exist, but it takes planning
By brigitt martin
Photo by Earl Kendall
“Greyhounds have shovel-shaped, webbed paws so they can dig in as they run,” explains Michelle.
“Zoë would run such tight figure eights that her shoulder would skim the ground. She ripped our grass to shreds.”
When she wasn’t wearing out the lawn, Zoë used her shovel-shaped paws to dig up the Stevens’ raised flowerbeds, where she relished burying her head in the freshly cultivated soil like an ostrich with its head in the sand. All of this exercise would leave Zoë with an enormous appetite. Famished, she would conclude her outdoor adventures with a grassy salad, which she would later regurgitate inside the house. “We couldn’t let Zoë outside alone,” bemoaned Michelle.
The Stevens’ attempted to empty Zoë’s gas tank in dog parks, and by walking her twice each day. They tinkered with their yard’s design, trying to redirect Zoë’s energies and repair the path worn into their grass, but nothing helped.
Then, in 2001, Michelle attended a seminar about pet-friendly landscapes conducted by Fran Kiesling, landscape designer and owner of Dirty Dog Landscape Consulting and Design Services in Minnetonka. She was so impressed with the specialty landscaper’s ideas that she invited Kiesling to reinvent Zoë’s (and the Stevens’) backyard.
Shared Spaces
“There are ways to make your yard more functional and fun for both of you,” observes Kiesling. With a degree in social work and 11 years of experience in landscape design and installation—as well as a strong understanding of dog breeds, behavior, and psychology—Kiesling started Dirty Dog Landscape in 2000. Since then, she has created human-animal spaces for a homeowner with a flock of free-range chickens, beekeepers, a homeowner with horses, service-dog organizations, kennels, and breeders. But her specialty is dogscaping: designing yards for homeowners with rambunctious canines.Dogs, big and small, can wreak havoc on any landscape. “When a yard is regularly accessed by dogs—especially unsupervised ones—the damage is usually pretty obvious,” says Trudy Ohnsorg, a former Bachman’s landscape designer. “Chewed shrubbery and paths worn along the perimeter are fairly common. The larger the dog, the more potential for destruction. And with multiple dogs, the damage can be exponential,” she says.
Photo by Earl Kendall
“I once built a wood-chipped dog run along the perimeter of a yard for two golden retrievers that had trashed a client’s yard,” Ohnsorg recalls. “The interior of the yard was for supervised use only. But for the dogs, we built a wood fence within a metal fence that had grapes growing on it, and gave the dogs access to this run via a dog door on the house.”
In Barb Heideman’s half-acre Falcon Heights yard, for example, Kiesling considered the needs of Reggie and Rino, a collie mix and Belgian sheepdog, respectively. To Reggie and Rino’s delight, much of the lawn was replaced with curvaceous groupings of hardy local plants, mulch, boulders, and other elements that added variety to the landscape. For Heideman, the new layout incorporated brick stairs to control erosion on a steep slope worn bare by the dogs. An arbor and hedges differentiated the vegetable garden from the rest of the yard, making it easier for her to keep Reggie and Rino at bay.
“Once they were installed, the hardscaping, the dense plantings, and the built-in running paths all made so much sense, I couldn’t believe we hadn’t thought of them before,” Heideman says. “People don’t hesitate to landscape their yards for their kids, and install huge, costly play structures. So, of course, you would landscape for your dogs, too!”
Whose yard is it?
When next-door neighbors also own dogs, landscape maintenance can be a particular challenge. Neighboring pooches often rush the property line, bark, and “mark” excessively. Kiesling suggests installing a privacy fence and a dense hedge, if space allows, or co-fencing your yards. “I knew homeowners who built a ‘Chunnel’ under their fence so the dogs could crawl through and play in each other’s yards. The dogs loved it!” she adds with a chuckle.C. Elaine Brubaker, president of Brubaker Landscape Designs in Minneapolis, suggests structural elements such as large rocks, uneven surfaces, and large, woody plants to slow dogs that might otherwise plow through gardens like freight trains. She locates more delicate plants and flowers on hillocks or berms, and intersperses them with rocks to deter curious and capering canines.
Textural and olfactory cues signal dogs that they’ve entered another zone in the yard, explains Ohnsorg. “But don’t forget to go into the yard with them and reinforce any new rules about their changed environment.”
Another major consideration in yards shared by dogs and humans is manure management. Elimination areas located at the back of yards are fine for young dogs in warm climates, but impractical for most dogs living in the wintry Midwest, Kiesling says.
“In wintertime, in the middle of the night, your aging pet isn’t going to want to cross a wind-whipped expanse of deep snow to get to his potty area,” she says. “Put the potty adjacent to the house or garage, but out of your sight, and not only will he be more likely to use it, but you’ll be more likely to keep it clean.”
Brubaker recommends filling a basin structure with a natural, cleanable element like mulch, river rock, or pea gravel, and incorporating a French drain into the design. Be sure to let your dog test a variety of fills before installing one. During trials, for example, Zoë refused to stand on any variety of rock. “But she was quite content to urinate in the priciest wood mulch,” says owner Michelle ruefully.
No matter how carefully you or a professional designer plan your landscape, some dog damage is inevitable. But you can measurably curb the destruction by installing an appropriate design and using a consistent training regimen. “The design of the yard can make your dogs run in different directions or patterns, and change their behavior in and experience of the property,” Kiesling says. “However, landscape design cannot replace training.”
Both landscape design and dog training contributed to the success of the Stevens’ new pet-friendly yard. Kiesling designed the space around the figure eight that Zoë liked to run, hardscaping where much of the tasty grass was located and providing Zoë with an outdoor bed in the sun, a waste area, and a digging pit screened from human view. For the humans, the new design includes a large gazebo, subtle outdoor lighting, and a raised vegetable garden.
“We built the vegetable beds up quite high, with steps to access them, so that Zoë would recognize them as a separate area and could be trained not to play in them,” Michelle explains. “Our experience has been wonderful—the best investment we’ve made in this house.”
Doggy Do’s
• Replace wood decks with stone patios for better wear against dog claws.• Line water features with a thick sheet of rubber, and then flagstone, to prevent punctures from a swimming enthusiast’s claws.
• Use structural elements such as rocks, benches, and uneven surfaces to keep dogs off plantings.
• Leave foot-wide paths between plant groupings so dogs don’t forge their own running paths.
• Choose hardy, resilient plants (such as hostas), and make sure your selections aren’t poisonous (such as yews) to animals and children.
• Spread wood mulch in the shady areas of your yard to minimize muddy paws.
• On a high, look-out point, create a place that your dog can call its own.
• Continue to use the local dog park for exercise and socialization.
Brigitt Martin is a Burnsville freelance writer.
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Reader Comments:
By printing this aticle you made my day! I was at a doctor's appointment and picked up your magazine in the waiting room. I almost cried right there after seeing the photos of Reggie.I am the woman who gave Reggie to Barb Heideman many years ago,never guessing how much this would change her life- how much GOOD she would do! I rescued "Johnny" from a shelter-I KNEW he is special! Linda Smith