My entire backyard has turned into a bog, sprinkled with annoying rocks. The dogs come in and they bring dirt everywhere. They also get it stuck between their toes, where it hardens into some kind of demon concrete.
If I catch each dog as they come in, I can shove them into a tub and scrub the muck off their feet. This is time consuming (4 dogs), hard work (the biggest is about 100 lbs), and they hate it.
Does anyone have any other methods to tackle this? I’ve contemplated making them walk through trays of water on their way back in. I suspect they’d just leap over it, the stinkers.
If you don’t have any Wile E Coyote options for tackling mud, I’d like to hear any animal/mess story you’ve got.
Doggie boots, perhaps supplemented with a tied towel/paper if the mud gets high up the leg. It should at least take care of the toe concrete. Are there long socks/pantyhoses for dogs?
We’ll need to see pics of the 4 subjects in any case.
Good looking mutts. I only have 1 dog, and I HATE mud season. Only solution I have found is to go out with him while he does his business to ensure he doesn’t run around the muddier areas, and walk him on sidewalks for exercise.
Just about the ONLY reason I like it when it is below freezing is that mud is o longer a problem. (That and frozen dog turds are easier to shovel up! :))
Three dogs (and horses) here and we despise mud season. We struggle with it yearly.
Yesterday was especially fun. I took the dogs outside at dusk. The mud was covered with a layer of wet snow. A deer had bedded down under a large pine near one corner of the house. When the dogs startled it (and it startled the dogs) it ran/bounded directly in my direction. I moved quickly to one side to keep from being hit, but fell over while jukeing. Not pretty.
Our yard is mud-free in the muddy seasons, but I take the dogs on a trail walk every morning. There are swamps, ponds and mud puddles and they love them all! They’re big dogs so there’s lots of mud when we get home. I keep a stack of old bath towels in the garage. They get wiped down from head to foot before they go in the house. If it’s really bad, I wet the bath towels and then clean them up. The only saving grace is that they have very short hair so the mud comes off pretty easily.
I live with the mud. (See my muddy gate thread) 5 dogs and a yard that is more torn up this year than ever before. At the worst of it, I try to wipe the dogs down with wet towels. Mostly I just live with it, sweep it up when it dries, and have no visitors.
I was gonna suggest the dog wipey sheets. I use them. But my dogs are small. It would take way too many for your dogs. I like the old towel method, in the garage.
I put udder cream on my dogs feet/pads if it’s particularly wet out. That helps a bit with clean up. Hmmm? You have a conundrum.
I keep several towels by the door–one huge Costco beach towel goes down on the floor when the dogs come in and they’re told to “wipe your feets!” by staying on the towel and tippytapping around until I’m pretty sure the worst is off, and there’s a big 5x7’ waterproof mat outside the door where they have to stand in order to come in. Bear is the more waterproof of the two, being part husky, but also the more rain and mud avoidant and unless there’s a compelling reason to leave it (pooping, peeing and chasing intruders in the street) he stays on the wooden porch so he’s pretty easy. Shoga has smaller feets but is all over the yard constantly (because squirrels!) and is not very waterproof so her grotty little paws need more wiping and tippytapping to clear. I also keep a towel for dabbing them off hanging over a rafter by the heater (where it dries off fast enough to be useful) to get the worst rain off their coats. Then a couple really skanky old towels for throwing down on the floor to scuffle around to pick up whatever gets by me on the first pass. I don’t know how in hell people manage who have fully carpeted houses, that just grosses me out to contemplate what all is in there!
It helps that the dirt in my yard is very absorbent alluvium/tree duff with basically zero clay content so it doesn’t get all pasty mud like some yards do, and I don’t have a lawn, per se, just whatever super hardy grasses and plants can survive out there so the majority of the yard has plant cover for most of the year. I’m still thinking of dumping a few yards of gravel out in the major traffic areas around the porch though, just to help out.
I have ordered the thing. I will report back. I got it in the large size. If it works well, I might get it in small as well. The large dogs are definitely a bigger problem.
