Working with the Neighbors
Why You Want to Keep Dogs Off Your Lawn
You love patting your neighborhood dog on the head as it strolls by. Regardless, you still might want to keep it off your lawn. As precious as our furry best friends are, they can still cause a great deal of damage to the grass you work hard to maintain.
Perhaps the most common reason you’ll want to repel dogs is to keep your front lawn free of poop.
Dog piles in your front yard are unattractive, smelly, and ultimately bad for the grass. Dog poop contains high nitrogen levels, which can leave fertilizer-like burns on the lawn. Dog urine is similar in its high nitrogen content. Dogs repeatedly mark their territory in the same spot, which causes severe burns to specific areas of your yard.
Dog waste can cause more than just damage to the eye – especially if you have children or pets of your own exploring the yard.
Canine feces contain parasites and harmful bacteria while also attracting disease-carrying flies. According to WSU’s Water and Natural Resources Program, dog feces can contain parasites like salmonella, campylobacter, giardia, roundworms, coccidia, and parvovirus.
Keeping dogs from pooping on your lawn is critical to the health and safety of your guests, family, and turf.
Digging is an instinctual canine behavior dating back to ancient wolves. Dogs dig to pursue a smell, bury toys, or create a refreshing bed in the dirt. Dogs also kick up grass after pottying to mark their territory.
These behaviors are as innate to dogs as they are harmful to grass, so you’re justified in your desire to keep your yard dog-free.
Now that you understand why it’s important to keep dogs off your lawn, we’ll go over some commercial and DIY products to do the trick. We’ll also list a few canine-repellent plants you can add to your garden to double down on reinforcement.
Nature’s MACE is an animal repellent brand accredited by the Better Business Bureau.
The company sells Dog MACE animal deterrents to help you keep pets and stray dogs off your lawn. According to the company’s website, Dog MACE is “100% biodegradable, fully natural, and incredibly easy to use.”
The product comes in granular pellets, liquid concentrates, and ready-to-spray solutions.
| Dog MACE Product | Available Sizes | Average Cost | Active Ingredients |
| Ready-to-Use Spray | 40 ounces treats 1,000 square feet 1 gallon treats 3,000 square feet | $20-$30 | Castor oil Garlic Cinnamon Potassium sorbate Sodium lauryl sulfate |
| Granular Formula | 2.5 pounds treats 1,400 square feet 6 pounds treats 3,500 square feet 22 pounds treats 14,000 square feet | $22-$100 | Peppermint oil Cinnamon oil Citronella oil Dried blood Garlic White pepper |
| Liquid Concentrate | 40-ounce container makes 5 gallons and treats 15,000 square feet 1-gallon container makes 16 gallons and treats 48,000 square feet | $30-$85 | Castor oil Garlic Cinnamon Potassium sorbate Sodium lauryl sulfate |
Repellex makes animal repellents for dogs, cats, deer, rabbits, moles, and squirrels. The brand’s website says Repellex “keeps animals off your lawn without harming them” and “controls pests without endangering your environment.”
Repellex’s dog repellent comes in a spray, granule, and tablet form. The ready-to-use spray formula contains several spices, including cinnamon and garlic. The granular and tablet formulas are made of capsaicin, a component of chili peppers.
| Repellex Dog and Cat Repellent | Available Sizes | Average Cost | Active Ingredients |
| Ready-to-Use Spray | 32 ounces treats approximately 500 square feet | $13 | Cinnamon Mint White pepper Garlic |
| Systemic Granular | 1.5 pounds 3 pounds | $18-$25 | Capsaicin |
| Systemic Tablets | 50-count150-count300-count | $20-$100 | Capsaicin |
Go Away! by Bonide is a cost-effective and accessible animal repellent.
Since 1926, the Bonide brand has developed organic pest control products that are now available in hardware stores and garden centers across the U.S.
Bonide’s dog repellent is available in a granular formula made of spices that irritate pups’ noses to keep them away.
| Go Away! Rabbit, Dog, & Cat Repellent | Available Sizes | Average Cost | Active Ingredients |
| Granular | 1-pound container treats up to 300 square feet 3-pound container treats up to 900 square feet | $10-$20 | Red cayenne pepper Cinnamon oil Thyme oil |
I Must Garden was founded in 2004 by an avid gardener frustrated with animal repellents on the market. She developed products dedicated to helping fellow gardeners protect their plants through safe, all-natural pest control.
I Must Garden’s liquid spray repellent stops dogs from chewing on your plants, and the granular formula keeps them from digging holes in your yard.
According to the company’s website, its products are completely biodegradable and contain “natural ingredients and botanical oils that smell and taste bad” to dogs.
| Available Sizes | Average Cost | |
| Liquid | 32-ounce container treats 1,000 square feet 1-gallon container treats 4,000 square feet | $13-$25 |
| Granular | 2-pound container treats 150 square feet 20-pound container treats 1,500 square feet | $19-$40 |
Active Ingredients
You can make your own dog deterrent at home using a few of the ingredients in standard commercial products. Dogs’ senses of smell are approximately 100,000 times more powerful than ours, so filling your yard with harsh, irritating scents is a harmless way to keep canines away.
You can scatter or spray these substances around your lawn and flower beds to deter pesky pups:
Adding aromatic plants to your garden is another home remedy to try. This method gives you the chance to grow some new greenery while keeping dogs out of your garden.
The following plants are fragrant and pleasing to humans, yet stinky and overwhelming to dogs. Plant a few throughout your flower bed to pack a perfumey punch.
If commercial repellents and DIY remedies haven’t done the trick, you can try several other methods to salvage your lawn care efforts.
If you know your neighbor’s dog is the culprit behind your littered front lawn, the first thing you should do is talk to them about it.
Chances are, the dog’s owner isn’t intentionally letting their pet trash your lawn. They might not know their pup has been exploring the neighborhood or simply don’t understand proper pet owner etiquette.
Nicely ask the neighbor to pick up their dog’s droppings. If confrontation isn’t an option, you can put up a sign in your yard asking passersby to clean up after their pets. You can also put out a container of pet waste bags so that people have no excuse not to pick up the poop.
If you’ve asked around the block and no one knows the repeat offender, you can contact animal control services to report a stray dog.
Putting a fence around your yard is a more expensive method of keeping dogs off your property.
Installing a fence can cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the size of your yard. Fencing may be a viable option if you’d like to put one up for other reasons like gaining some privacy or giving your pet a safe space to roam.
If keeping dogs off your lawn is your main objective, you should first try different, lower-cost options. Even if you stake a fence around your yard, determined canines could still jump over it or dig under it.
If you’re still having trouble with dogs and other animals wrecking your lawn, try a motion-activated sprinkler tool like the Critter Ridder. This small machine uses an infrared sensor to detect nearby animals and “releases a startling surge of water to scare them away.”
Other motion-activated animal repellent tools emit high-frequency noise to frighten animals without harming them. These products are often designed to repel deer, raccoons, and rodents, but they can also irritate and deter dogs. Human ears can’t detect the sounds generated, making these gadgets less startling than sprinkler sensors.
Dog Repellent Plants
A natural plant barrier can be effective to keep dogs away from your yard. Specifically, prickly or thorny plants can do well to deter dogs—especially in hedge form or otherwise planted close together. Some dogs also dont like to walk on ground cover plants, especially vining ground covers that would be cumbersome to walk through.
Home & Lawn Pest Control : How to Keep Dogs Out of Your Yard
I’m a dog lover. I always have been. I don’t think there ever has been a more accurate description of a creature than the dog’s moniker “man’s best friend.” Heck, I actually wonder what is wrong with people who do not like dogs. And when I see a dog out walking in my neighborhood, all I want is to pet him, “shake hands” with him and make a new, four-legged friend.