‘Out, out, damn Spot!’

• By ROXANNE C. HARE
• Special Sections Editor
• Published: Mar 6, 2008

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Fido and Socks are cute, most of the time. It’s when these beloved pets – or someone else’s, or something worse – kick up dirt or use your flower bed as a litter box that they become a problem.

So what’s a homeowner who’s spent weeks, months – even years – perfecting their beds to do? A few garden experts have some answers.

If it’s your pet causing the problem, the solution is in your hands. First, Clegg’s Nursery Owner Scott Ricca recommends training.

“Dogs and cats are creatures of habit, so if they have a place where they like to use the bathroom, it’s hard to break that habit,” Ricca said. “If you have a new animal, it would be better to try to give it a positive action to keep it from forming a habit that you don’t like.”

If that doesn’t work, there are products with a list of unusual ingredients designed to repel small animals.

“One of them is napthaline, which is the active ingredient in a moth ball,” Ricca said.

Other animal repellents include herbs such as rosemary oil, mint oil, cinnamon oil and egg solvents.

Still other products are even more unusual, said WBRZ gardening expert Louis Miller.

“There’s actually a fertilizer called blood meal,” he said. It contains – you guessed it – powdered blood. “It smells like one of their brothers just died, and it acts like a fertilizer. The drawback is it has a very offensive odor.”

Those products can be found at most hardware stores. If they don’t work, there are other, old-fashioned ideas, Miller said, including the use of a fake owl to scare critters away.

Also, “For dogs and cats – especially for dogs – one of the things you can do is put up a decorative fence,” he said. “Most dogs won’t jump over 2 or 3 feet.”

Taking it further, Ricca suggested temporarily using an electric wire until animals are trained.

One of the biggest challenges, however, is discovering which critter is causing the damage. Miller recommended coating the bed with cooking flour to study the tracks made.