Your dog is digging up the artificial grass. It started at an edge.

A dog digging a lawn is after something: a cooler spot, a scent, a buried bone, or just the pleasure of it. Turf takes most of that away. The fibers do not give, the infill does not hold scent the way soil does, and there is nothing to find. What turf offers instead is an edge.

• A lifted edge. Nails back out over a few seasons, especially on the Grand Strand where the sandy ground under them shifts when it is wet. The edge lifts a quarter inch, a claw catches it, and it peels.
• An open seam. Seam tape that has let go leaves a line the dog can get a nail into. Once the seam is open an inch, it goes fast.
• The smell underneath. Soil, moles, a vole run, or urine that has gone through into the base all smell like something worth digging for. A lifted edge lets that smell up.
• Boredom. A young dog left alone in a small run will find the one thing in it that moves.

Walk the whole perimeter and try to lift the turf every couple of feet with your fingertips. Sound edge does not move. Then look at the corners, which lift first, and along any concrete or paver border, where turf is usually glued rather than nailed and the glue can let go. Follow each seam with your hand and feel for a ridge or a gap. Note where the dog has been working: the spot it always goes back to is the spot that is loose, not the spot it prefers. If the dog is digging in one place that is not an edge, press the turf there; a soft spot or a raised tunnel line means something is under it, and our page on soft spots covers that.

An edge that is lifted but not torn is re-secured: the turf is pulled tight, nailed or stapled at close spacing along the whole run, not just where it came up, and a bender board or a buried edge restraint is added where there was none. Turf against concrete is cleaned and re-glued. Open seams are cut back to sound backing and re-taped and glued. Where the dog has torn the turf itself, that section is cut out and patched.

That is the edge and seam repair service: edge re-securing from $175, seam repair from $250. Both are usually a single visit. If urine has gone through into the base and the dog is digging for that smell, the edge fix holds the turf down but the smell is a separate odor treatment, and we will tell you if that is what we find under the corner.

Skip cayenne, pepper sprays and citrus oils on turf; they stain, they wash into the infill and they are unpleasant for the dog without teaching it much. A bitter-taste deterrent labeled for pets is turf-safe and buys a few days while the edge is fixed. A row of stones or a rock border laid over the secured edge takes away the grip permanently and looks intentional. For a dog that just needs to dig, a sand box in a corner of the run redirects it better than anything sprayed on the turf.

Then keep the edges tight. Walk them twice a year, after the wet summer and after a storm, and press any corner that lifts. Every Premium Restoration includes an edge and seam inspection, and a nail hammered back in on a routine visit is a lot cheaper than a torn corner. Call us when an edge lifts more than you can push back down, when a seam has opened, or when the dog has pulled a piece up. Edge repair from $175, seam repair from $250, patches from $250.