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wonderpets_gw

OT: dogs and garbage cans

wonderpets
15 years ago

I apologize for bringing up something so off-topic -- many on this forum are great problem solvers, though.

We have a neighbor that lets their dogs roam, which leads to at least one morning a week where we go out to find our outdoor cans tipped and garbage spread around the yard.

I considered weighing down the cans with some old bricks we have, but the garbage men have to be able to lift the can. Would getting new lockable cans be sufficient? There are at least two larger dogs.

If the list can figure out how to keep a bear out of a compost bin, I thought someone might be able to suggest a simple solution.

To bring this back to compost: for those of you that do sheet composting or make lasagna gardens, do you find that loose dogs tend to dig in your stuff? I'd love to put some pumpkins and such out on the area that I've staked out as my next bed, for example, but I don't want to encourage the dogs. I had also thought about doing some blender composting over the winter to add to my current bed, but again, I don't want dogs digging around in there.

(Dog disclaimer: I have nothing against dogs. I don't have much against dogs that are loose if they are well-mannered. We have had neighbors in the past call city animal control over loose dogs, but I'd rather not them. I'm not even sure exactly which neighbor it is, so that makes it difficult to just ask them outright.)

Comments (7)

  • sylviatexas1
    15 years ago

    I've had good luck putting a "glug" (tilt the open bottle over its target & let it go "glug" one time) of ammonia into trash bags & cans.

    *Nobody*, human, feline, canine, or bear (orsine?) wants a snootful of ammonia fumes!

  • greenbean08_gw
    15 years ago

    Can you use a bungee to keep the lid on?

  • tiffy_z5_6_can
    15 years ago

    We have raccoons which create havoc if they even think there's a slight morsel of something in the garbage. We use big green carts to place our organics to the curb and they have great fun with that.

    Two things have stopped the drasted morning clean-up ritual they were creating. First, use a bungee cord to secure the lid as greenbean suggests. Second, tie the garbage can to something - a tree, a post, even a piece of rebar pounded in the ground. We have a raised bungalow so ours are tied to posts behind some lattice under the veranda. Our green cart (because it smells in the summer), is secured to a tree at the end of the driveway. Bungee cords work well for this too as well as long velcro strips.

    Some of my neighbours also use ammonia as Sylvia suggests and find it works well.

    I have two dogs, one of them a Black Lab. She has taught me that if I put a smidgen of protein or baked goods in the compost or in my lasagna gardens, then it's permission for her to go tear things up. I simply don't include those items in my gardening practices and things work well. That is not to say she doesn't walk in the gardens, so new plantings are cordoned off but I doubt this would work with dogs which have not been trained that sections with cords a foot from the ground must not be walked into.

    We did have a complaint against Raven - that's the Lab. Yes, we were ticked about it at first but we did get her an electronic collar to keep her on our property. Hindsight being 20/20, I'm glad our neighbour came and asked us to restrict her to our property. Now she doesn't go on the road so I don't have to worry about her getting hit by a car and in the last two years a pack of coyotes has moved in presenting another danger. You might be doing your neighbour a favour even though they may not see it that way. I would certainly act upon it.

  • jeremyjs
    15 years ago

    I'd just ask them to lock the dogs up or come and clean up the garbage every morning. It bothers me when people don't properly train their pets and let them run wild. That may be ok if you have a ton of land for them to frolic on, but in any type of residential area that's rude and unacceptable. Especially with a dog. Cats usually don't make a mess and destroy property like a dog will.

  • robertz6
    15 years ago

    I would spray the can when moving them to the curb. The cheap way would be something cheap like household ammonia. There are products at hardware and garden store such as wolf and predator urine liquids, but pricey.

    I don't think it is unfair to ask the neighbor to clean up the mess if it is clear his/her dogs made the mess.

    One neighbor has a nice tubular simple cart with two wheels and two handles which held two trash cans. She was ninety years old, but could move this easily.

  • joepyeweed
    15 years ago

    Tie several aluminum cans together and set them on top the garbage cans. When the cans hit the ground it makes a very loud noise and will scare most dogs away.

  • gnomey
    15 years ago

    I hope the bungee cords will work for you. Fortunately we haven't had a problem here yet. The ammonia would probably work, but I'd hate to be unkind to the sanitation workers as they'd probably get a snoot full of it too.. and that would be so unpleasant.

    If you know who owns the dogs, I wouldn't see anything wrong with talking to them about it and see if they can keep the dogs put up or come clean up the mess. I'm like you, I don't like calling animal control if I can possibly avoid it. It's not really the dogs' fault, it's the negligent owners.. and to be fair, they may not even know this is going on. Maybe letting them know that it is happening would bring about change. I like to think the best of everyone.

    At my mom's house we don't have a problem with loose dogs, but we do have roaming cats that don't seem to belong to anyone. For that reason, any food scraps have to be put deep into the center of a hot pile or in a completely enclosed composter, like a barrel tumbler or something, so that it can't be accessed. Even with burying deep in the piles, it has sometimes become a problem. They are hungry and apparently can smell very well and are also proficient diggers. The resident groundhog is also an extremely competent excavator. The off-the-ground barrel tumbler is the only way I've found to completely eliminate the problem of scavengers in compost without hurting anyone or anything. We would never put out poisons or anything like that.

    In lasagna beds, we only use materials like coffee grounds, manure, cardboard, leaves and the like. No real "food" stuffs, coffee is the closest thing to anything food related that goes in them.