Not sure if this helps, but our dogs love to lie in areas we have covered with bark overlying weed cloth. Maybe bark and some tough plants would be an option. We have a stone area and they stay off that but go into the beds between the stones and dig like crazy. We put an electric fence wire around the area for a while to train them. Then we leave the wire up but turn off the electricity and the dogs stay out of that area well. Blessings, Daryl

Oops, forgot to finish. I got rid of grass by spraying with Round Up and then covering with weed cloth or black plastic and mulch. I'm not a lover of chemicals, but it saved a lot of time and got the job done. Daryl

I live in Texas so I am not sure how this will work in Toronto but our dog loves both the Asian jasmine and vinca major to lie in. She loves the small purple flowers that the vinca produces and eats the flowers too. This plant gets about a foot high and spreads out - looks puffy. Of course the AJ is flat. Our dog is "not for old ladies" as my husband says. She's big and rough and sounds like a horse when she runs through them so both are pretty hardy.