# Do you clean dog poop from your fenced yard? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 19, 2017, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525 "2017-03-19T02:32:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/21 "2017-03-19T16:13:11Z")
My fenced-in back yard is about 1/3 acre and we have 3 dogs (2 large, 1 small). I absolutely clean it up - but not as often as I probably should. The small dog’s poop is pretty unnoticeable when I’m cleaning, so I’m guessing the OP is in the same boat there. But it adds up, and the yard is demonstrably more pleasant when I do clean it. It’s especially important when the grass isn’t growing as fast (fall, winter, mid-summer), there’s a lot less clippings and decomposition taking place to naturally take care of it. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/22 "2017-03-19T16:17:43Z")
Where I used to live it was a health department requirement if your lot was under a certain size, which most were. Now they didn’t come around and inspect, but if a neighbor complained, you’d get a ticket. At the time we had two dogs and even before the laws implementation we cleaned up every couple of days. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/23 "2017-03-19T16:22:15Z")
Ugh, I am so glad some of you are not my neighbors. (I used to have neighbors who didn’t clean up their dog’s shit. It was absolutely disgusting and there were times we couldn’t even sit out on our back porch due to the stench) ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/24 "2017-03-19T16:55:14Z")
Always clean up my fenced yard. After the snow melts, it’s prodigious, of course. But i use my yard, and have friends there. So, yes, I clean up the poop. Always. Just like on the city streets! It would fall well below the minimum standard for cleanliness and hygiene I maintain for my pets and my family, I’m afraid. And I’m not a great housekeeper, mediocre at best! I’m certain my back yard would feel literally, like a shit hole to me. I mean, savages know better than to live among the shit of their animals! I am impressed the OP is so casual about it though, I have to say. I kinda admire that level of chill about stuff. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/25 "2017-03-19T17:03:21Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Ugh, I am so glad some of you are not my neighbors. (I used to have neighbors who didn’t clean up their dog’s shit. It was absolutely disgusting and there were times we couldn’t even sit out on our back porch due to the stench) I sit on my back deck all the time in all sorts of weather, including the heat of summer and never, ever have I once smelled dog poop. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/26 "2017-03-19T19:18:46Z")
First of all, why are you talking about dog poop at this time on a Sunday morning? 😕 😃 > [@FairyChatMom](#): > > Our fenced yard is about 2 acres, most of it wooded. I have no idea where our dog poops because I’ve never seen it. So no. Got the same, but no woods. Just a fairly relentless wind that dries it and flies it. The dogs hold up their end, so to speak, by dumping when I take them out into the desert every afternoon. Chicken shit is far worse, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/27 "2017-03-19T19:21:14Z")
I clean it at least once a week. If nothing else, it keeps down the number of flies and other bugs. ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/28 "2017-03-19T19:23:32Z")
every day ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/29 "2017-03-19T19:38:24Z")
My daughter, the chihuahua owner, is surrounded by four houses. Three have medium sized dogs, and two of the three have at least two dogs. None of them pick up after their dogs on any regular schedule, including my daughter. I have never smelled dog poop at all. I’m trying to figure out what kind of dog, or what kind of digestive problems a dog might have where the poop would be so strong smelling that it would bother a neighbor, or if my daughter has just been lucky with the dogs she and her neighbors own. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/30 "2017-03-19T22:51:18Z")
We clean it up because (1) neither of us wants to step in it while gardening, and (2) one of the dogs is a poop eater, and if there’s anything worse than dog breath, it’s dog shit breath. ---
**Author:** ![May\_20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@May\_20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/May_20)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/31 "2017-03-19T23:44:45Z")
We have a Boston Terrier; he’s about 15 lbs now. We have a large enough yard that I haven’t been very diligent about picking up after him over the winter. As it warms up and the lawn needs to be mowed, I will have to be more diligent. Hubs will have a fit if he steps in dog poop while he does yard work. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/32 "2017-03-20T01:04:47Z")
No, Yes, Yes, and Yes. Growing up we had a German Shepherd and a 1/3 acre lot. We trained her to go in a back corner with fir trees, the kind that drop tons of long soft needles all year round. So that took care of both covering and de-stinkifying the poop. If it had been a really long time since the last rain, we’d go out there and bag it up - mostly because we didn’t want her tracking it in on her feet. When Mom was raising Huskies, we had to clean up twice a day or the flies would proliferate and torture the dogs ears. It was a 5 acre lot, but there were horse barns nearby, and we’d get those really huge vicious flies out there. And despite having tons of woods and long runs every day, the idiot dogs would often go in their kennels. They were two to a 10x20" pen, but still. (concrete floors, wooden roofs, whisky barrel beds and chain link fence walls.) When Dad was raising German Shepherds and English Bulldogs up in Michigan we had to clean up immediately. He had a pond on the property stocked with trout, and nobody wanted a bunch of poop running down into their water. Plus, bulldog poop is revolting. We’re talking eye-watering stuff here. Bulldogs are absolute machines for turning perfectly normal dog food into the vilest, rankest most putrid gases, solids, and gluey liquids known to mankind. It takes at least twenty chickens to out-stink one solitary English Bulldog. The current CeltDog is a tiny little thing, only about 18 pounds. But there is no big fenced in yard for him, so I have to clean up when he’s here. Otherwise he’d drag his leash through it and we’d step in it any time we wanted to go out and play back there. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/33 "2017-03-20T01:32:16Z")
We don’t because our three are trained to go in one corner and we don’t walk in that corner. The stuff disintegrates and disappears in a few days. It’s only very rarely that I’ll smell anything and that’s when they go while I’m out there on a hot day. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/34 "2017-03-20T17:42:23Z")
My mutt is a fluffy 20 pounder. He is a leash dog, and I just make sure he doesn’t poop where I typically walk. It isn’t hard to do since the yard is the better part of an acre. There also seem to be soil insects that, much like arthropodian Morelocks, surface and spirit away his leavings. I have had him for five years now and have yet to step in any. No, I don’t scoop. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/35 "2017-03-20T18:00:16Z")
> [@Pai325](#): > > My daughter, the chihuahua owner, is surrounded by four houses. Three have medium sized dogs, and two of the three have at least two dogs. None of them pick up after their dogs on any regular schedule, including my daughter. > > I have never smelled dog poop at all. I’m trying to figure out what kind of dog, or what kind of digestive problems a dog might have where the poop would be so strong smelling that it would bother a neighbor, or if my daughter has just been lucky with the dogs she and her neighbors own. Who knows? Could’ve been the fact that their entire place was such a shithole to begin with that the dog poop somehow “enhanced” the aroma. (Their lawn was a total disaster) I was so glad when they finally defaulted on their mortgage, they were such jackasses. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/36 "2017-03-20T18:05:37Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > I imagine it depends on a few things: > > -The size of the dog > -The number of dogs > -The size of the yard Exactly so. When we moved to our house, from an apartment, we had two dogs. One was a medium-sized dog (about 40 pounds), the other smaller (maybe 20 pounds, at the most). With two of them, and a smallish, fenced-in yard, I’d clean up the poop at least once a week, usually before mowing the lawn. Plus, come springtime, there was usually an extended clean-up or two of the winter’s pile-up. A few years after we moved to the house, the bigger dog passed on. The combination of being down to one dog’s poop, and her being a smaller dog, seemed to make pickup less necessary, except for the springtime collection. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/37 "2017-03-20T18:47:20Z")
For the people who live near other people (as opposed to those with acreage out in the country or whatever) do you pick up after your dogs when you walk them? Or do you not walk them? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/38 "2017-03-20T19:20:22Z")
With 2 medium/largish dogs, and a small yard, ours gets cleaned at least 3-4 times a week. They nearly always go on the side of the yard. High quality dog food has drastically reduced the amount they go and the smell. When out for a walk, I always bring poop bags, but my dogs seem to prefer going in their own yard, and rarely go when we are out. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/39 "2017-03-20T19:33:59Z")
Glad that you are not my neighbor. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525/40 "2017-03-20T19:50:31Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > For the people who live near other people (as opposed to those with acreage out in the country or whatever) do you pick up after your dogs when you walk them? Or do you not walk them? 😕 Well, we live in “the country”, but we routinely take our dogs places. We have poop bags in all our vehicles and would never not clean up their shit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-clean-dog-poop-from-your-fenced-yard/782525.md?page=3)