A place fur us all

Usually when people talk about dogs in the garden, it's with derision or lament. Our furry friends, the complaints have gone, leave brown spots in the lawn, dig holes and pluck plump tomatoes off the vine.

But there is a new generation of dog-loving gardeners and pragmatic landscape architects learning to embrace the challenge, seeking more than mere coexistence. They aim to create lush environments that fulfill the deeper urges of green thumbs and bone-munchers alike.

Cheryl Smith, who is the author of several books about dogs, including "Dog Friendly Gardens, Garden Friendly Dogs" (Dogwise Publishing, 2003), lets the needs of dogs inspire, rather than baffle, her. In a landscape she designed for Legacy Canine, a dog-training facility in Sequim, a "dog garden" is mounded on top of a 20-foot agility-style tunnel. Weeping trees and tall grasses — which dogs love to run through — plus climbing rocks, a digging pit, paths and a water feature complete a sort of dogtopia.

It may sound over the top, but there is a pragmatic reason for adding play elements. "Dogs can get bored in their spaces. If you make them happy, you will protect the garden," says Robin Haglund, a landscape designer and garden coach for Exteriorscapes in Greenwood. She has two dogs that pose their own outdoor challenges, a lab-shepherd that excels at digging and an escape-artist terrier-beagle.

The byword with dog-friendly gardens is to work with, and not against, your dog's instincts. If your dog loves to guard the perimeter, so be it. Don't plant all the way up to the fence. "Leave them a little run. They can patrol, and they don't knock your plants over," says Smith, who shares four acres in Port Angeles with two dogs, Nestle, a border-collie mix, and Diamond, a Bichon Frise mix. "Everything works out."

It's equally misguided to try to break the habits of a born digger, such as a terrier or dachshund. It rarely works and usually results in worse behavior. Instead, consider a digging pit.

"Create [a sandbox] for your dog," Haglund says. "Then bury toys with treats in it to train them to dig in that particular spot." This brings us to an important aspect to dog-friendly gardens: Smart design is just a start. Most gardeners have to train their dogs to share the garden.

It's also important not to set canine pals up for failure by creating an open plan. Dog-friendly gardeners deploy barriers, arbors, decorative stakes, pathways and raised beds to channel a dogs' energies to things they enjoy and away from delicate plants and vegetables.

The Pet Friendly Garden, a demonstration plot at The Oregon Garden in Silverton, provides many examples of these strategies for dog owners, who can visit with their dogs in tow.

Lisa Port, a landscape designer and owner of Banyon Tree Design Studio in Seattle, has designed several gardens with dogs in mind. In one gated backyard, she created 24-inch raised fruit-and-vegetable beds. Wide grassy spaces in between act as an informal dog run for a pair of English setters. The dogs stay out of the edibles and, as a surprise bonus, their presence keeps birds out of the strawberries.

Your dog's comfort can also inspire interesting elements, like a shade tree or screen and a water element. A pond or fountain acts as a water bowl, a place to cool off and a bird bath — all of which keep the dog entertained.

Still, none of these addresses the true dog Waterloo: brown spots in the lawn. It's not about pH, and feeding your dog tomato juice won't fix it. High concentrations of nitrogen in dog urine are what "burn" grass and other plants. The only sure-fire solution is to dilute it.

"This really cool professor in Colorado studied it and found that you had approximately eight hours to water the spot after the dog goes," Smith says.

Since most people don't have time for this sort of vigilant patrol, dog-friendly gardeners create break areas of stone, gravel or sweet-smelling cedar chips and train dogs to relieve themselves there.

For a particularly shy pooch, Haglund even created a gravel pad with a plant screen for privacy. Now that's dog-friendly!

Lisa Wogan is a frequent contributor to The Seattle Times and the national dog magazine The Bark: vietato@msn.com.