Am I mad to get my lawn turfed, considering its a big mud patch at the moment, due to rain and Otis . I dont think his wee stains the lawn, but he does seem to wear the grass down. Whilst the grass is establishing, I was going to take him down the garden path to a patio area at the bottom of the garden and try and get him to wee and poo there. It can be washed down, and will stop the grass being damaged. I dont have loads of dosh, so its quite an expensive thing for me to do, also the time and labour spent preparing the lawn, so dont want to do it if its going to just be ruined again. Thanks, Maggie x
Re: Am I mad to get my lawn turfed. Will you be playing with him outside a lot (i.e. will he be running round on the grass a lot and wearing it out)? Are you doing anything to direct excess water away from the lawn area (like putting in drainage pipe, or a stormwater pit or a sunken 'bog garden' area that water can drain to)? As long as you do something to prevent it being soaked all the time then an established lawn should hold up fine to a dog that is just playing normally outside with its family. I personally have not found that male dog wee burns the lawns. An alternative might be soft-fall mulch that they have in children's playgrounds. It's like soft, fine pine bark.
Re: Am I mad to get my lawn turfed. I think with Otis you have the opportunity to establish a particular spot in the garden that he uses to toilet since you always have to take him out there rather than just open your back door. And I think you can choose a hard wearing lawn rather than a specimen lawn which should help. Not that I know a lot about gardens. I personally would reduce grass a bit and have more patio/stones in my garden with NO WEED STREWN BORDERS (sigh) if I was spending money on it. It's exciting planning though
Re: Am I mad to get my lawn turfed. You can get different turf for different needs. A hard waring utility turf would probably be fine although you can get turf specific for play areas etc which are very hard waring and turf for very wet areas. The turfs you don't want are bowling green type turfs which are very easily damaged. You will need to keep Otis from running on the lawn until the turf has knitted probably a few weeks but walking on it is fine. Once the turf is established I don't think Otis toileting on it will do much harm at all. It's the running especially if it's very wet which is why you need to go for tough grass. You pick up all sorts of useless info growing up on a farm.
