'Dog resistant' plants ?

Hi Everyone !
I'm Victoria, and live in Mauritius. I've been looking around and reading this forum for quite some time - so many awesome discussions ! - but only finally decided to create an account a few days ago.
I've always loved questioning the world around and asking 'Can it be done 'better' ? How would that look like ?', this brought me after some time to permaculture and a PDC.
I'm currently in Mauritius, staying with my parents, and took on the challenge of re-designing the garden with permaculture in mind, to get as close as possible to the dream of my mother: to produce as much food as she can from her garden.
We live in Mauritius, in the middle of the island. So it's a sub-tropical-ish climate, but as we're in the center of the island, that is higher in altitude, it's 'colder' [ people from other part of the world would still consider it pretty hot weather most of the time I believe !] and more rainy than the rest of the island.
The house is situated in an urban area, but there's still a garden around the house, with even a few big old trees and such -so it's not as if we're stuck with no spaces as most people in urban area, but we're definitely trying to maximize space.
Now, here's the thing : there are currently 4 dogs. They are mostly in only one half of the garden, as doors were put on each side of the house, so that they can only go in the front yard when we're with them, otherwise they're in the back of the house. Now, in that part we still have two areas that are shaded by trees, and that are for the moment bare-grounded ! Even if it's not big spaces, I absolutely want to grow some kind of ground-cover there [of course], but would also love if it was some kind of productive ground cover [to once again maximize the growing space]. Now, the thing is, the dogs are used to play around in the whole area behind the house, so it would need to be plants that are still quite resistant to probably being walked on/played in by the dogs. One of the spaces does not have much good soil neither. So I was thinking about maybe growing vines ? Some kind of pumpkins or chinese winter melons [as I was given a few seeds by a friends a few days ago] maybe ? I mean, that would be resistant to the dogs I believe ? And them playing in it wouldn't compromise the yield I believe ? But would love if anyone had any others ideas of 'dog-resistant plants' for sub-tropical areas or how to still use these spaces - or at least not leave the ground bare, while also knowing that the dogs would enjoy these spaces too ?
Thank you !

depends on the dogs! i had puppy-brained neighbor dogs do some damage to my squash plants and fruits earlier this year. i imagine if those same dogs were confined in the area they did damage, it would have been worse. as it happened, they only found their way in there once, doing damage to ~40lbs of squash.

That's an intriguing question and I shall look forward to seeing what answers you get! I don't think pumpkins would stand much of a chance against most dogs. Mine loves to roll in plants and I saw her munching on a pumpkin leaf the other day. You might be able to grow them if you created some kind of trellis, like a cattle panel arch and protected the base of the plants with a small fence or rocks and logs? Then it would create a nice shaded spot for the dogs to hang out under whilst still getting you some vining crops. Maybe get some wood chips down so the ground isn't totally bare? That would also make it easier to grow anything you might want to in the future, since it will start improving the soil and retaining water.

Usually animals don't like smelly plants though I don't think that is the case with dogs.

Dogs like to dig, as mentioned roll around, and romp where ever they want.

The only suggestion I could offer is an electric fence though with dogs I have not had good luck with them.

I think it depends on the dogs. With one well behaved one, you can probably do whatever you want. With four, I'd say you need to fence off the planting space.

I grow things like strawberries as groundcover in my backyard, but I do have to fence the dogs out of it temporarily if I want any fruit during harvesting season.  After that,  it holds up pretty well to my dogs running in and out of it the rest of the year.   and it's heavily wood chipped.