Actually female dog's urine tends to make brown spots on the grass but my male dog's urine doesn't seem to hurt anything. Some of the plants he pees on regularly are quite healthy. He tends to dig up things I've just planted. I think he thinks I might have buried something interesting. If I put a cage around them until they're established it's not a problem. He also stays away from thorny things like roses or raspberries.

My beloved Zato the Rottweiler is mostly blind. So that adds an even bigger problem into the mix. And my garden is brand new since April 21st, so to his way of thinking "Mommy keeps rearranging the furniture out here....". When I put in the first garden bed and he inevitably bumbled his way into it, I had to raise my voice several times and say "Stay OUT of Mommy's dirt!".

The point of this little story is that now, whenever his feet touch mulch instead of grass; he knows that he's strayed in "Mommy's dirt". Since he loves me and wants to please me - he stays out of my flower beds. And he hears "WHAT a good dog - you stayed out of Mommy's dirt!"

Maybe you could spend some time training your dogs that this particular spot is sacred before you planted your little plants?

Try buddleia daviddi, butterfly bush. It flowers nicely and is very robust. Obviously you're not going to encourage the Pyrs to do their tapdancing there, but they're tough plants. The purple ones seem the most fragrant.

Lamium is a groundcover that's even tougher, but it might beat out the other plants in the bed.

Daylilies have an excellent shot at survival assuming the dogs don't dig. They come in a nice range of colors, too.

Aucuba is a very tough shrub, and I think it's variegated leaves are pretty. My dog pees on it almost every day, and it does fine.

Good luck. I have an Akita who's much smaller than your guys probably are, but at 75 lbs he can still bust stuff up without meaning to.

Can't keep my new puppy out of the butterfly bush. Can you tell she's a pointer? She's destroying it one branch at a time.
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We have a puppy and she's tried eating my sedum, two hardy palms I got from Plant Delights Nursery that I'm trying to grow, and some geraniums. I have had my husband put chickenwire around the plants I really worry about her eating, like my oleander. I spray Boundary on but I have to remember to do it everyday or she'll go right back to it. She's at a destructive age--almost four months. I wanted to get a new couch but I guess that will have to wait until she gets over the chewing-everything-in-sight phase.

My dog's break the branches on the butterfly bush as well -- and they're not nearly as huge as the Pyr (I have 2 boxers).

Perhaps azalea??? It's a stiff and compact shurb plus it likes acid.

I have a perinneal helanthus that has withstood three dogs so far. The current canine resident is a Belgian Malinois, a very high-energy breed.

I have a lilac bush that I planted this year and the dogs pee around it's soil constantly. Doesn't seem to mind one bit.

I have two labs and a poddle. One of the labs is a puppy (all 45 lbs. of her), and whenever she runs into a bed to be with whoever gardens I yell (out of flowerbed). It seems to work. My older Lab stays on the path or on the grass. I raised my flowerbeds by encircling them with landscape timbers 2 to 3 high. That sets the beds off from everything else, and has really worked. I was more worried about poisonous plants (brugmansias) but the dogs don't go near them.