Can I stop my dog kicking up the grass after having a poo?

[Titsywoo]

My lawn is becoming ruined :(

7 year old bulldog bitch who we have had for a month. She is a very sweet easy going dog but the poo thing is driving me mad. I haven't told her off or anything though.

Since she poos only immediately after eating I thought I would try and encourage her to poo in one place so it wasn't so bad but when I go out with her she won't poo. Then I thought I would take her for a walk after eating and she could go on a verge and I could just clear it up from there. But again she won't do it.

Any ideas? We have clay soil so even walking on the grass when wet is not great but this kicking up is destroying it. We paid a lot to redo the garden and get it turfed last year so I'm finding it a bit upsetting when I look out at it.

It's not something they think about doing it is an instinctual behaviour.

You could try teaching a positive interrupter. The Kikopup channel on youtube has a good video on this.

I think it would be really hard to teach her without her connecting it to pooing.

My dog goes on a stony patch in our garden. Is this a possibility? You would need to take her to it on the lead every time until she pooed and got the idea?

When they rub their feet they are rubbing their scent over the ground so it's very instinctive.

My dog does this on the grass immediately outside the front door when we're leaving to go for a walk, often at the same time as barking, so clearly she's letting all the other dogs in the area know she's out and about and they should take note - like they care.

She's a small dog but even so the grass flies everywhere and is pulled up by the roots. So I can imagine how much damage a bull dog would do to your grass.

The funny thing is she doesn't always do it after pooing but if she does it's more like a stretching exercise than kicking up the grass: she will lift each back leg in turn and stretch it straight out behind her, not even disturbing the grass. She only does it in the park though and only started doing it after she'd seen a few other dogs kicking grass up after a poo. So although the behaviour is instinctive, for her, doing it after a poo seems to be learned behaviour.

Sorry can't help with ideas. I know how awful it is having your garden ruined. I've pretty much given up with my grass.

Can only second what pps have said about interrupting the behaviour, or trying to get her to poo on hard ground.

Amazing really what we accept from our dogs. Can't really see most people putting up with it if their children trashed their gardens, or as in your case SexLube laughing if someone's kid kicked mud on their car windscreen.

But that's dog people for you:)

Hmm I'm not really a dog person. DH is and I agreed after years of saying no. She is very sweet but I am not going to let her take over every aspect of our lives. She is not allowed in our bed (ever no chance in hell), is allowed on one sofa (in the kitchen with a throw on). So the garden thing is getting on my nerves a bit. She is 7 so I don't know if she is harder to train but she is a stubborn girl. She refuses to poo anywhere else (unless she is desperate).