If your dog has trampled a path through your yard, then this easy trick will repair the damage and help keep dogs from tearing up your grass going forward.
I have three dogs now – two foster-fails in 2024 – and over the winter they absolutely DESTROYED my lawn.
I know it sounds weird to worry about a lawn in Winter, but that’s when the most damage occurs. The repetitive path that pets can wear going to and from their favourite area becomes compacted, and with the grass dormant for the season, there is no chance for it to re-grow to heal itself. Come Spring you’re probably left with a path that looks something like this:
That dead area is what I was left with in April 2024.
I tried putting down a mulch path for them to run on but, with the wet Spring weather, the chips all ended up mushing into the ground as you can see. The lawn was almost completely trampled and dead and the muddy path meant that the puppers came in with filthy feet several times a day.
UGH!
I googled for help and came across this video by 203 Pet Service:
With high hopes, I decided I had nothing really to lose.
I picked up this safety fencing and lawn staples from Amazon (Amazon affiliate links), and got to work.
Prepare the ground
Since this is most likely a Spring project, you’ll want to rake the dead areas free of leaves and rocks as best you can.
Scarify the lawn (muddy area) with a rake, or dethatcher to loosen the surface dirt so that the grass seeds will be able to root.
Sprinkle the area with grass seed.
Seems easy right?
Protective barrier
You’re not done – at this point the dogs and the birds will have a heyday in your yard. The next step is key to keep dogs from tearing up grass:
lay down your garden fence over the trampled areas,
and hold in place with lawn staples:
The garden fencing can be cut with scissors, so you can unroll whatever you need, then start a new row.
Yes, you can see my fur-babies were very helpful. lol
Water your seeds in and re-water as needed (Spring showers will help with this).
Already you should find a significant difference in the amount of dirt the dogs bring in. Just this layer of plastic stops a lot of the mud from getting onto furry feet. On top of that, the birds didn’t swarm over the fencing either, so most of the seed stayed in place.
I ran out of the fencing before I completed covering all of the bare spots, but because I didn’t know if it would work for sure, I didn’t want to invest in a second roll without proof.
This is that same path of lawn in May!
Still 3 dogs, still back and forth to visit friends along the fenceline several times a day – but the fencing worked!
There were a couple of spots that weren’t filling in as well as others, so I sprinkled a few more grass seeds over the fencing and then covered them with a light layer of garden soil and watered them in.
The result
We moved out of that house at the end of July, but some of the last photos I took were these:
The dogs still ran that same course day-in and day-out – but the garden fencing protected most of the grass!
This isn’t something you have to take up and put back down between every mow either. The netting stays in place year-round and you can easily mow over it without touching it at all.
I imagine if you tackled putting it down in Fall, you could avoid all of the damage that pet-trampling does over the Winter?
Now that I’ve tried it, I can fully attest to how well this method works to keep dogs from tearing up grass.
Thank you 203 Pet Service!!
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Have a great one!