Dog owners- tell me about your artificial grass?

[Cuppatea14]

We have a lovely one-year old Lurcher who has absolutely trashed our garden. She likes to run in circles (greyhound ancestry) and dig (terrier ancestry) and no amount of walks and runs will persuade her to abandon these pastimes. All of which results in a complete mud fest with added trip hazards all over the garden.

We’re at the end of our rope now and thinking now that artificial grass might be the answer. Anyone any experiences - how durable is it? And how much will dog poo ‘stick’ to the blades versus ordinary grass?

Ours is much easier to maintain than real grass (we have both). Real grass needs a lot of maintenance as our dog makes lots of pee burn patches.

To get it laid professionally is expensive as it's the foundation that costs a lot and you don't want to scrimp on it as you want good drainage. We also opted for long blades so it's is soft underfoot.

It can get very hot in full sun in the summer.

We wash any poo residue away with a watering can on both real and fake grass. Occasionally I might treat it with a sanitiser but only once or twice a year if there hasn't been much rain although I don't think I did it at all last year.

Ddog likes the artificial lawn as it's warmed by the sun, he only goes on the flower bed.

We really like it. DH laid it himself and we've had it about 5 years now. We are in Scotland and have never known the grass to get too hot. It does need regular soaking down in the summer with cleaner though as it can get a bit wiffy despite us spraying with water after dog pees.

We love ours, it's soft (we paid for a more expensive type which is longer and softer), so maintenance free and no mud coming into the house. It does get warm in the sun but nothing unbearable, we do have quite a shady garden though. It drains really well and weve not noticed any smells despite not really rinsing it down as often as we perhaps should. Dog poos pick up easily, the ones that don't wouldn't pick up off real grass either but it's much easier to spray with water/wipe off with artificial grass!

The one thing I would be cautious about is dogs having zoomies as I would be worried it could cause carpet style burn.

We removed ours.
It was expensive, looked great... but in a south facing garden it got hot in summer.. a hell of a lot hotter than grass (as in not comfortable to sit on)
It also smells if your dog wees in the garden. My friend shampoos hers!
(My dog doesn't often in the garden but it defo does smell)

My dog flatly refused to wee on it (or poo) She just wouldn't.

So we took it up and went back to a lawn that definitely doesn't look as good, but doesn't get hot and is enviromentally friendly.

I miss the look of it tho!

We have it for our dogs but I'm not personally a big fan.

I find it does smell of urine a bit in the hot weather even though we clean it regularly. I also find if either of our Dogs have soft poos for whatever reasons it's a pain to clean.

I've never had it get too hot but you do need to check it before letting your dog walk on it in the Summer if it's hot as it heats up a lot more than normal grass.

Pros are that it's easier to maintain in terms of not needing cut

Thanks for all the feedback. I can’t see any alternative at the moment, we have a small lawn and it is just one big mud patch now. She has a dog flap into the kitchen, so the kitchen is also constantly filthy. That’s interesting about the heat and the smell - we are in ireland so I can’t see it being much of a problem, although the garden does face south so on the odd sunny day it does get very hot out there. On balance though I think for the vast majority of grey, drizzly Irish days it will probably solve more problems than it causes. Just as well she is cute, the silly hound.