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Puppies Eating All My New Plants!


Ralphy
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My two lovely dogs (a 1 year old Koolie and an 8 month old Border Collie) are driving me crazy at the moment, please help! My partner and I have just made new garden beds for our backyard and filled them with lots of plants but my puppies constantly eat them, dig them up and sleep on them. I have already replaced the plants once and they have just destroyed the second lot.

They have plenty of toys, I give them new marrow bones all the time and we walk them daily so they are not just bored, they just love destroying plants more than anything!

I have tried strong smelling spray's and granules from Bunning's, this does not deter them at all. I have tried getting angry at them but this hasn't worked either, I can't catch them in the act as they tend to do it when we're not home or asleep. Any other ideas on what I can do to stop them?

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Hi

I had the same problem with our 9 month Aussie bulldog. first thing we did was give her a sandpit to dig in.

I also took to scooping up her poops and sprinkling them through the garden beds. She hasn't dug in the garden beds since.

Cant remember where I heard about the poo thing but it has worked a treat for us.

cheers

Bob

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Fence the garden beds off with temporary fencing. Either the plastic latice type stuff or chicken wire sort of stuff.

Yep, I did that. I'd take my Cav out to do his business and spend the whole time trying to pull him off all my new natives. It became a nightmare, so I bought some stakes, cable ties and puppy wire (though this probably wont suit a Border Collie). Put up a 15 meter fence in about an hour and a half. When Shiraz goes outside now, I can sit back on the chair and relax, which is a good thing at 6:15 in the morning! Oh, the only thing was he loves eating tan bark...swallowed one the other night and was coughing and spluttering a bit. Was at the vet this morning getting his 12 week shot and she seemed to think he was ok. I now am watching him like a hawk again! Hope you can find a suitable solution.

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Hehe - I have two border collies (now 2 yrs old) but I remember shedding many tears about ruined garden beds and wasted $$$s.

For us the only thing that worked 100% was blocking access by using makeshift fencing/chicken wire etc. However it never looked nice. See pic.

dogs%20003.JPG

Otherthings that have worked (but not 100%) is:

1. types of plants e.g. spikey type plants like yuccas, agaves survived really well as the dogs hated them.

2. dont use blood and bone - I stupidly planted 10 lavenders and used blood and bone. Came home and every single one was pulled out and the roots had been chewed on.

3. cover newly planted plants with mulch - I found that the potting/planting mix was also intriguing for the dogs but if covered with mulch they dogs werent interested.

4. dont plant in the shortest path e.g. the shortest path from our deck to the driveway goes right through the garden bed - when the dogs ran to bark at the post man, visitors, us coming home they always ran right through the garden bed. You have to either block access or will be continually upset at plants in the shortest path get knocked over

This worked really really well especially with smarter breeds like border collies.

5. flags - i made little flags (could probably buy somthing similar) out of sticks/wire with white plastic or laminated paper. We trained our dogs by having them on a leash. One person would shake/wack the flag on the ground but keep quiet. The other person would walk the dogs up to the garden bed to within about a metre and then quickly quickly turn around getting the dogs on the leash to follow to about 2 metres away fromt he garden bed and PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE the dogs and give treats. We had to do this morning and night for about 5 days and then they got the idea. The shaking/wacking of the flag was a negative response for the dog and the moving away from the garden bed was a positive response. Worth a try. See pic of our flags and the two offenders.

dogs%20002.JPG

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If you don't want to fence it off and want to save money in the long run i would buy one of those invisivble wire dog fence. For my dog it works a treat, she has only ever felt the adversive stim once and it emits an warning tone first so that the dog knows to quickly go back, and now she knows where her boundries are.

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Ralphy, I feel our pain!

Puppies and gardens dont mix....

We have spent hundreds of $$$ on small trees, plants and it was all chewed, our GSD loved to chew the soft wood and ripped them up, dig holes and ate through plastic trellis, you need the wire stuff....

Now our dog is older (20 months) she has stopped digging it up so ive replanted native grasses (no woody trunk for her to chew) and we spray them with taste deterrent...

I also put her dog poo in the hole when i plant them and this has worked a treat, she leaves them alone...

Best of luck, can you wait until the pup is older to establish a garden??? we had to :(

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Last time I fostered 2 small dogs (a papillon cross and a JRT cross) under 2 yrs of age, I lost all the plants (except some established natives) in my garden - this was in spite of an hour's exercise each morning and more after work, a house full of toys and older canine companions! They did lots of other things, destroyed/played with books, mags, my coffee table, etc etc.

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We gave up on plants with young dogs when we were foster carers, they'd always pull them out.

Barrier it off with chicken wire if youw ant to have a garden or leave building a garden until the dogs are a bit older.

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:thumbsup:

My two lovely dogs (a 1 year old Koolie and an 8 month old Border Collie) are driving me crazy at the moment, please help! My partner and I have just made new garden beds for our backyard and filled them with lots of plants but my puppies constantly eat them, dig them up and sleep on them. I have already replaced the plants once and they have just destroyed the second lot.

They have plenty of toys, I give them new marrow bones all the time and we walk them daily so they are not just bored, they just love destroying plants more than anything!

I have tried strong smelling spray's and granules from Bunning's, this does not deter them at all. I have tried getting angry at them but this hasn't worked either, I can't catch them in the act as they tend to do it when we're not home or asleep. Any other ideas on what I can do to stop them?

Hi, I'm a new, clucky and very proud of my baby blue Amstaff Girl "Havoc", She lives to her name, gets into everything, livin the puppy life to the extreme!

I found this product at IGA supermarkent, it stopped Havoc eating the plants and digging the soil (I figure she liked the taste of 'dynamic lifter', a soil additive which contains blood and bone, smells like "s##t", so only natural for any puppy to want to chow down on it I guess, its also stopped her peeing inside as I add it to the mop bucket when cleaning the floors, And it's as cheap, Cost $6. Product Name: KEEP OFF, Distributor: Multicrop, active ingredient: Methyl nonyl ketone, web: www.keepoff.com.au.

Good luck

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Thank you all for your great advise, I'm trying the poo thing (just cleaned the yard a couple of days ago so need to wait for more poo!) and the flag idea looks very interesting too! I'll let you know how I go with it, but by the sounds of it, waiting until they're older might be the best trick.

Thank you guys!

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