Dutch Shepherd Forum

OK, so between Hanks vigorous running and all the snow and rain we've gotten these past few months my backyard is a mud pit! Wondering if anyone has ideas or tips on either what type of grass or ground covering will hold up to a maniac Dutch or if anyone has any experience using articficial turf?

It's not the entire yard, just the areas he runs in most but it looks terrible and every time we go out there he gets covered in mud. Of course he likes the mud, the beast! Any tips or ideas will be appreciated, thanks

We just put down straw for the spring months until it starts getting drier and try to encourage the dogs to play in different areas so they don't tear up one area. I have considered artificial turf though. If I could afford it, I'd get k9 grass, but we have 5 acres now and it's not really feasible.

I have the same problem. Mostly from the dogs, but we just had plumbing done, and they dug trenches.

I was thinking about the artificial turf route, but a client of my wife told us that it's a bad idea. Apparently, it doesn't take long for the smell of poop and pee to linger forever with no way to get rid of it.

She either has several dogs, or she boards dogs (I don't remember). She recommended some type of smooth rock on top of some type of screening. I didn't get the details, but when I do, I will share.

We just met with a landscape designer who has dogs because our backyard is all mud even from pre-puppy. She said no matter what you do a dog will eventually destroy the grass. For our climate she recommended something with deep roots, like Bermuda grass, and it's drought resistant. So I would look at a grass that sets roots straight down and deeper. Nothing that runs along the top. Also keep in mind depending on the grass it can take up to a month and a half for the grass to set roots, which means no doggies running on it for that long.

I think though in the end we'll be doing decomposed granite. It's kinda like gravel, but compressed so it's harder to dig up. Yet it's still a little loose. The land scape designer said a lot of her clients with dogs do it. As long as the dog is bigger and not smaller it isn't a problem if accidentally ingested - if your dog does that kind of thing. Other options were gravel and mulch which travel.

She did tell us artificial turf does need irrigation systems to keep it cool and assist with drainage, which adds to it's expense. I cried - I wanted artificial turf!!! Lol. But you could also do gravel with flag stones over it, dog runs, all kinds of stuff!

We call our backyard Dutch's trench because he has a path from the back to the front he like to dig and throws turf when he takes off from a standstill. Granted he'll be 2 in June, so it's only our 2 year with him. Weed feed and seed it wil grow back we just use a studeier mix.

Heather