I have some professional experience with plants and landscaping. We recently remodeled our fenced backyard with new drought tolerant landscaping. In general, I kept in mind the list of plants that are commonly thought to be toxic to dogs. The list serves as a good guideline for plants to avoid. But not all dogs react to those plants the same way. So much depends on their size, metabolism, physiology, genetics, amount ingested, type of plant, etc. Consequently, I used some plants from the list that I could justify as presenting only a minor risk.
Yes, I would urge you to take precautions against plants that may be toxic to your dog, however do not panic if your dog should ingest a small amount of something that is on the list. A trip to the Vet is justified if your dog should show any adverse change in behavior over the next couple of days.
There are even some plants that may be toxic to your dog that are not on the common lists. Most of these plants could cause stomach and intestinal upset if eaten in sufficient quantity, but certain death is not necessarily the common conclusion. We experiment with a lot of uncommon, exotic plants as a hobby and we have no idea about their toxicity to dogs. Therefore, we always supervise Ricky when he is outdoors in his yard. Yes, he does like to sniff plants, lick them, and sometimes chew a bit on them. We just distract him with some interaction rather than scolding him. We worry more about Ricky eating granular fertilizer or pesticides than eating the plants themselves. Snail bait pellets are one of the worst. We really don't like Ricky exploring other peoples yards because we have no idea what they have been using in their garden and often times they don't even know because they use an outside gardening service. When we use fertilizers we generally use fertilizer spikes driven way below ground level. If we find a plant that is prone to insects and requires pesticides, we just pull it out and plant something else.
Ricky really likes a lawn type ground cover! He rolls in it, buries his nose in it and breathes in deeply, licks it, chews on it, and is his "go to" place for potty and poop. It is his form of "catnip." In our remodel, we wanted Ricky to have his own safe "lawn." After much research, we planted Dutch White Clover from seed (Trifolium repens) for Ricky. It is more of a low growing ground cover about 6" high. It is relatively drought tolerant, requires little maintenance, no fertilizing because it "fixes" Nitrogen in the soil, is non-toxic, stands up to foot and paw traffic, and does not turn yellow from dog urine. The drawbacks are that it may attract bees when blooming and it is an aggressive grower so it needs to be contained within curbs or header boards.
Ricky likes being wherever his favorite people are, whether indoors or outdoors. He only wants to be outdoors when we are outdoors. Now Ricky has a safe yard where we can play with him and keep him out of trouble. We are confident that, with vigilance, no plants in our yard will harm him.
Ricky's Popi
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