Is it possible to have a nice garden and a dog and, if so, how?

[Perfidy]

17 week old puppy, dh has been wfh in conservatory so just turfs her out to play. Which is running around like a mad thing. How can I train her to leave the borders alone?

Don’t know why I have the audacity to respond, my gardens a nightmare! But a friend with a pretty garden and a large dog basically fenced off a bit for the dog when she was a puppy and let her do her worst there. Wish I had .

Our dogs (2 & 3 yrs old) have always destroyed the garden.

I drew the line a few months ago when I decided they would no longer be allowed out there. I want a nice garden and don’t want the dogs pooing where the DC play and ripping things to shreds.

They now get two long walks a day rather than one but are not allowed in the garden.

It takes time, and being willing to accept some damage in the short term.

I find that as long as I've given my dogs enough stimulation then they're fine in the garden, but if they've not had enough stimulation that's when they start to get up to mischief.

If your puppy is being turfed out to play without a proper walk or play or training time then it will be putting all its energy into running around the garden and looking for interesting things.

Can anyone recommend any fencing for a vegetable garden? We got our puppy at the end of the growing season when everything was established so she didn’t do too much damage.i am not hopeful about my baby courgette plants.

I have two big dogs, neither have ever ruined the garden. I've always kept the lawn nice, painted the fence etc. I do grow my flowers in troughs and pots rather than on a border though.

Our dog went through a digging phase as a pup so we had to supervise her in the garden for a while. But the most irritating damage (which isn’t her fault) is that her wee burns the grass. So we have bald patches on the lawn

Yes... choose a dog which isn't too big or boisterous! My dachshund serves as a lawn ornament, sunning himself whenever he can. He does wander in the flowerbeds but hasn't destroyed anything significant.

With our previous dog when DD was small, we fenced off a small area around the back door for him to be let out into. It was just 5 long trellis panels fixed together into a half octagon shape. (Obviously this only suffices for a small dog). We could step over it, lifting child over and also the dog as he was allowed into the rest of the garden under supervision.

We do grow all our herbs in pots though!

How can I train her to leave the borders alone?

Verbal correction if she approaches the borders, eg a stern ‘ah’ sound and a swift return back to the house if she ignores and goes into the border.
They learn fast.

I have a dog and a lovely garden.

As ever it’s not the dog it’s the owners. Dh less worried about the garden.

I would also love to know the answer. I used to have a lovely lawn and then I got a dog! Turns out he's a prolific digger so now when I hang washing out I'm nearly breaking my ankles tripping into random little holes everywhere!

Love him to bits but my gardens a disgrace.

We have fenced some of our garden off so the dogs only use a part of it. I couldn't cope with the dog mess being everywhere. We are not cruel, they get walked and can still run about.

Some breeds I gather have very strong instincts to dig - terriers are known for it.

Of course you can! You have to really, really train your dog to pee in a certain area (maybe get a pee post) and away from the lawn or no-go areas. Our dog can poo anywhere. We do regular poo sweeps.

So as diligent as you are in training your dog to do its business outside, just be diligent about taking your dog to its designated area.
Our dog is a gun dog, a lab-vizsla cross. He's never been a digger, so that's made it easier for us. I don't know what you can do with a digger (if it's a breed issue, this is tough, but you can try and be firm about the digging).
My dog is 4 and has the run of the garden. It's just automatic to him now that he goes to his 'pee place'.

I pick up dog poo religiously. When the dogs were youunger (and one of our more dopey ones used to fall into the fish pond regularly) we would fence bits off and just accept that it had to be scarifieced. Now they are 18 years old so they do no damage.

So top tip- wait 17 years.

one of those words was 'sacrificed'.

Terriers were mentioned above. If your dog is a terrier, you will have a tougher time. Though I totally believe that every dog can be trained! You have to be the boss, the alpha, loving and kind towards your dog, but firm when training. You'll get the results you want.

Decking, decorative stones, dog zone, no real grass.

I have a 2 year old sprocker, insane energy, hyper. We did our garden up last year. I was very worried about him wrecking it. However, we walk him a lot, DH runs with him in the morning, and we dont play with him in the garden. He digs the odd hole, he likes to walk in my raised beds, but generally he has calmed down over time and is well behaved in the garden. 17 week old pup will destroy everything. And every dog will poo in the garden. You just need to religiously pick it up. Give it time. The garden will just have to be fixed after the pup calms down a bit, maybe next year. Some breeds will always wreck a garden, but I think the key is stimulus and lots of exercise outside of the garden.

we trained our dog to only go to the toilet in a designated small area in the garden, its hidden and we placed gravel there which we hose down daily. it took a year to train him to do this.

he doesn't dig but we try to give him lots of training, exercises and activities.

he tried to eat the flowers as a puppy but has learned now it is NO to eat the flowers in the borders. he has quite a lot of freedom, there are only a few things forbidden, the few things that are off limits he responds well to

We have a nice garden and a dog . At about 17 weeks our puppy dug up and chewed a daffodil bulb and nearly died so we took a decision that he shouldn’t be allowed unsupervised digging time . We have a largish patio outside the French doors from the kitchen so dh put up an ornamental metal fence around the patio ( like park railings) and the dog is only allowed on the grass / planted bits when someone is outside watching . He has a digging pit on the patio which he ignores however if left unsupervised on the grass he digs instantly still and he is nearly 10 .

it's all about the supervision while they are little...once they realise that its FUN to race through the flowers and dig up the pots/lawn and rake through the borders you are doomed!

we have a courtyard affair (paved with borders at the back edge) so there's not much mischief to be had out there but even so one pup dug out some pots and she had never shown any interest in that sort of thing

I think it does depend on breed though...some breeds stay very puppyish for ages and cannot be trusted, the two GSDs we had were far too busy supervising and being sensible to do much that was silly and naughty. The labs and retriever types have always needed more consistent overseeing and for longer. :o

Lawn ornament