How To Keep Animals From Pooping In Your Yard (2024)

As a gardener, you must keep your garden clean all the time to prevent the infestation of pests and diseases. One way to maintain high hygiene levels is to keep animals from pooping in your yard.

The culprits could be your pets or stray animals lured by fruit-bearing plants in your garden. What is worst is the fact that animal poop can carry life-threatening pathogens.

Luckily this article offers you some tips on preventing animals from pooping in your garden.Keep on reading to learn more.

Identifying Animal Poop

When we talk about animals pooping in your yard, the typical culprits are house pets – cats and dogs.

Other animals you are likely to find relieving themselves in the yard include coyotes, bats, squirrels, mice, possum, skunks, snakes, and foxes.

It may be easier for you to identify pet poop because you are already familiar with it.

On the contrary, when it comes to wild animals, you may not be familiar with their droppings, making it challenging to get rid of them.

For example, poop from squirrels is cylindrical with rounded edges. The bats will drop dark-colored rice-like droppings.

Similar to bats, the mice will also leave droppings that look like grains of rice.

Wild animals like foxes will poop in the same place to protect their territory. Theirdroppings are similar to dogs and have a pointed end. Fox poop in rural areas is relatively darker than their poop in urban areas.

Another visitor to your garden is the raccoon, the poop of which is dark and tubular, measuring about 2-3 inches in length.

Excrement from skunks is similar to that of cats. The droppings are tubular with blunt ends and bear some undigested material.

Be on the lookout for the same excrement spots. Sometimes it’s not just your cats and dogs that poop in the yard. Your neighbors’ pets and other wild animals could also be a nuisance.

How To Prevent Animals From Pooping In Your Yard?

If you are done with the smell of animal poop and want your garden clean, now is the time to act.

Stop Dogs And Cats From Pooping In The Yard

1. Use Repellents

Canines, especially dogs, hate pungent smells. You could acquire a commercial repellent from a local store or prepare a DIY repellent.

Ingredients generally used in DIY repellents include garlic, almond oil, and olive oil. Apply your DIY repellent in specific sections of the garden where your dog likes to frequent.

Another commercial repellent used by gardeners is vinegar.It’s practical, thanks to its pungent, acrid smell that deters dogs.

Other commercial repellents to use are chili powder and cayenne pepper. After sniffing cayenne pepper, dogs get irritated and are highly unlikely to return to the same spot.

However, avoid pouring vinegar into plants since it could destroy them.

There are also specific repellents that deter cats from pooping around your lawn or flower beds. A few to mention are citrus peels, cinnamon, and apple cider.

2. Erect Barriers

Erecting a barrier around your yard is a quick and effective way of solving the animal pooping problem.

Depending on your preference, you could pitch a fence that will deter or prevent the dogs from coming to poop into your yard.

Some fences are pricey; thus, you will need to look at your budget. An alternative to a barrier could be the chicken wire. It irritates cats’ paws, which helps prevent them from popping in your yard.

3. Use Ground Covers

Using ground covers is also a good way of preventing animals from pooping in your yard, especially cats.

Some plant textures are a deterrent to cats.They cannot withstand these in their paws.

For example, you could make use of pine cones as a ground cover. You could also use coffee grounds since cats hate their smell and texture.

4. Create A Pooping Zone For Your Pets

Another quick way to solve the pooping menace would be to create a pooping zone for your pets. However, this method requires you to train them to use a specific assigned area in your garden for pooping.

You also want to eliminate poop in other areas of your garden to prevent other dogs from pooping all around.

With cats, you could create an appealing section in your garden that could serve as an attraction point.Spruce up the place with catnip or a little litter box to lure them.

Next, place some bird feeders in the haven that serve to excite the cats.

5. Sprinklers

Some gardeners don’t like barricading their gardens. If you fall in this category, a good option for you would be to use a sprinkler.

Some lawn sprinklers are activated by motion.These sprinklers can be handy in deterring animals that move around your garden.

A few sprinkler soaks help to keep the animals at bay and from pooping around.

Stopping Racoons From Pooping In Your Yard

Raccoons are also notorious for pooping in yards. The sooner you find a solution to their bad manners, the better for you. A quick remedy to prevent them from pooping in your yard would be to spread ammonia in your lawn.

Ammonia works as a repellent. It has a bad smell that deters the raccoons. Additionally, you could erect a barrier at the edges of your garden and spread ammonia along the border.

Stopping Squirrels From Pooping In Yard

Squirrels cannot withstand the smell of white pepper, cayenne pepper, and chili powder. Sprinkling these substances near their usual poop sites should keep them at bay.

Squirrelsalso dislike the smell of garlic and black pepper, which could work to your advantage. You could, in fact, grow these in your garden.

Stopping Foxes, Coyotes, and Skunks From Popping In Your Yard

Foxes, Coyotes, and Skunks are nocturnal by nature which means they usually venture out after sunset.

You could take advantage of this fact by installing motion-activated bright lights in your yard. Sudden bright flashes of light are likely to keep these animals from relieving themselves in your yard.

However, make sure to keep the lights away from caged birds or other pets since they could adversely affect their sleep cycle.

Another effective method of keeping foxes and coyotes away is to use wolf urine spray. The spray mimics the presence of a wolf which scares the wits out of these animals.

Wrap Up

If the frequent sightings and smell of animal poop give you sleepless nights, you now have all the remedies to keep animals from pooping around. Most of these methods are DIY and come at no or little extra cost to you.

Also, most methods are not aimed at hurting the culprit animals (even if they aren’t your pets) but to drive or scare them away.