Murphy will just not stay out of the large flowerbed at one end of my backyard.  Cleaning up his poop from the flowerbed is bad enough, but when he is finished pooping he does a massive scratching of whatever part of the flowerbed where his back legs happen to be standing.  As a result, he continues to rip out all the new flowers I’ve put in the bed.  I keep replacing the flowers and he keeps ripping them out.

I put up a small plastic garden fence (about 18″ high) around the flowerbed. but it’s not high enough and he jumps it.  I’ve looked for fences that are higher.  They are either too high and/or too dense, thus eliminating the view of the flowers.  And they are all expensive.  Somehow I’ve got to do something to convince Murphy to stay out of that area.  I’ve even tried using special chemicals and plants that dogs are supposed to stay away from.  The chemicals totally didn’t work and Murphy layed on top of the plants.

So today I built a fence.  I used bamboo stakes.  They are about 3′ high and dark green, making them kind of blend into the background of the plants.  I bought 75 of them (they were cheap–25 for $2.97) and stuck them in the ground about 4″-5″ apart all along the edge of the flowerbed.  If Murphy is set on getting in there, he can easily knock these down or push them apart.  I’m hoping that seeing a barrier will deter him from doing this.  For less than $10, I’m willing to take that chance.  They don’t look fabulous, but the look is better than a barren patch of ground being used as a canine poopground.