Any experience with pets + artificial turf in the backyard?
I have a (mostly) green lawn in my backyard seeded about four years ago. Unfortunately, it requires a ton of maintenance and watering that I cannot keep up with. Plus, we got a dog over the fall that will likely wreck havoc on the lawn (not noticeable now because of the weather). I was considering artificial turf but have read a lot of conflicting information online. Some say it’s very dog-friendly and has even better drainage than sod, and of course, other reviewers say that turf is terrible because it actually DOES require a lot of maintenance if you have a dog (regular watering, sanitizing) and that it doesn’t break down feces and urine the way sod does. Does anyone have experience with turf vs. sod with a pet? Any recommendations?
pepinohill
in Roofers 10 years and 9 months ago
3
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3 replies
pepinohill | 10 years and 9 months ago
Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I rather not let the dog use the bathroom in the garden either, but it was helpful while he was a puppy and didn’t have his shots. I was originally going to go with turf to bring down maintenance, but I was second-guessing my decision. I have a large tree in the yard that the birds love to frequent (and my yard is their favorite pooping target). That’s still a lot of maintenance to wash off the bird poop and also deal with the leaves and debris from a 50-foot maple. I may just use sod this year as my backyard is a giant puddle and I don’t have the patience to seed myself again. @Anotherposter: Great link with lawn alternatives! I need to cut down the amount of lawn in my yard.
anotherposter | 10 years and 9 months ago
Here are my rambling thoughts on this. We put in sod for part of our yard for the dog. We actually don’t want him to use the bathroom out there so walk him enough times a day that he feels he can go far from home. He clearly likes the texture of lounging on the grass to the bluestone area (the rest is planted with shrubs and trees), so as crazed dog owners we gave him a grassy area. When we lived somewhere that only had stone in the non-planted areas, the dog survived just fine. With the grass, he does track in more mud than when he was on stone. We thought a little about a turf when we moved in and were revamping the yard, but with all the plants we have, I decided that the clean up from the debris from the greenery (and the animals I can’t control, like birds, squirrels, raccoons, and neighbor’s fucking cats!) would be more difficult to deal with on turf than a natural lawn. Seeding it myself in the spring has worked well if I did it in time and kept it watered, but I did sod a few years back and liked that as well. Any grass takes work and around here and you’ve got to redo it every few years. I’ve thought about some alternatives, but I’m not sure our conditions are right for any of these: http://www.planetnatural.com/organic-lawn-care-101/alternatives/ I’ve seen a few front lawns with turf over the years, and it doesn’t look very good after it’s been out a year or two.
resident2 | 10 years and 9 months ago
In an urban environment, no matter if you have grass, artificial turf or stone patios, you have to pick up the dogs feces! The smell especially in the summer months will be awful. The concentration of pee is painful. You may get immune to it, but your neighbors….. Nothing grows well after a short-while of concentrated pee. But besides that most dogs do not like to piss and poop in their own home, and the garden is an extension of their home, especially you yourself want to use the garden in the summer.