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Avoiding Muddy Messes


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I recently purchased a new house on little over an acre. Which is great and I can wait to let my girls have all that room to run. The problem is there is no grass yet, so until it warms up enough to plant grass and while we wait for it to grow I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion on something cheap that we could put down (maybe straw or wood shavings?) that will keep the dogs from dragging mud into the house whenever they go out to play? At this time of year my new yard is just a muddy mess as the snow melts and freezes.

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A pile of towels at the door. And a cut 5ft section of an old hose attached to the spigot.

 

We have a rural, muddy, old farm property in NY. Which means no lush lawn, just hay fields and something resembling a lawn area that is mostly tree roots, rocks, grass and weeds. So we have the same issue with mud now since it snows, then warms up and all melts. It has been raining for days too. I keep a pile of towels at the door to wipe some of the mud off and just let them hang in the enclosed porch for a bit until some of it dries and falls off. I mop the downstairs of the house daily. When they run, mud splashes onto their backs. So basically their entire body has some mud on it.

 

Straw and wood shavings will just lead to mud with straw and wood shavings embedded into it. And all that straw and wood shavings will be tracked into your house. It would take so much to cover even a small yard so not sure how it would work unless you were talking about a small pen/fenced area.

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I live in the PNW where summers are dry and sunny and winters wet and overcast. My back yard is large and gets very soft and muddy in spots in teh wet season.

 

I simply don't allow wild play in my yard when its the wet time of year. Yard is for potty, mainly, and I take my dogs elsewhere to exercise them (leash walks, open fields, etc. Its easy to find empty parks and places when its raining!). I then rinse and towel them off before coming in. Soft spots in my yard get straw, it does help here when they are not running pell mell around in it, and once we get the summer dry out it disappears or is easily raked.

 

In your place, with acreage, I would set aside a potty yard and then a hose dogs off area so if they go out in the acreage to play, you can clean them off first.

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i am in Minnesota and the mud in the spring is awful. I fill a coffee can half full of water, dunk and wash each muddy paw, then blot. I don’t care about wet, but hate the mud. If it’s real muddy and the underbelly is coated, then into the tub she goes. Of course that means I have to wrap her in a towel and carry her upstairs.

I am curious, are there BC owners that still have grass in their yard? My Runa is a skidder and sheared off most of my grass. It got bad enough that I put down 100 rolls of sod last summer, plus a ton of seed and I will need to do major repair again this summer. I am thinking having a lawn in the back is just a pre-BC fantasy?

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One of the best things I've ever done for the dogs and my house is to have had hot-and-cold frost-proof outside spigots put in. My yard isn't muddy but when I walk the dogs twice daily, if it's wet on the ground, they get muddy and gritty. And I can hose them off in any temperature because I can set whatever water temperature I need - cool for summer, warmer for winter. I've taught two of them to shake off on command or we might play a little ball to get some of the water off, or they enjoy a good toweling off in the mud room. Having hosed them sure saves on dirty towels, too.

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I was taking about a small area with something down, but it seems the majority opinion is towels or hosing off. I do have a door that leads directly to a utility room with a sink right in front of the door. I could get an adapter and put a hose there that would be hot/cold to clean them off.

 

I'm putting a fence up in a way the I can contain them in different parts of the yard while waiting for the grass to come in or any other time I want to restrict access to parts of the yard. Then open it up if I want them to have the whole yard. Mud or no mud we are thrilled for them to have an acre vs the the subdivision yard they had before.

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i am in Minnesota and the mud in the spring is awful. I fill a coffee can half full of water, dunk and wash each muddy paw, then blot. I dont care about wet, but hate the mud. If its real muddy and the underbelly is coated, then into the tub she goes. Of course that means I have to wrap her in a towel and carry her upstairs.

I am curious, are there BC owners that still have grass in their yard? My Runa is a skidder and sheared off most of my grass. It got bad enough that I put down 100 rolls of sod last summer, plus a ton of seed and I will need to do major repair again this summer. I am thinking having a lawn in the back is just a pre-BC fantasy?

The house I'm selling had a nice lawn, but to be fair it was a really tiny yard so they could never get much speed to tear it up. The key seemed to be good lawn fertilizer and if I noticed a path being run down in the yard I would put up something in the middle of the path like a a few garden stakes to force the dogs in a new path until the old one grew back.

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i am in Minnesota and the mud in the spring is awful. I fill a coffee can half full of water, dunk and wash each muddy paw, then blot. I don’t care about wet, but hate the mud. If it’s real muddy and the underbelly is coated, then into the tub she goes. Of course that means I have to wrap her in a towel and carry her upstairs.

I am curious, are there BC owners that still have grass in their yard? My Runa is a skidder and sheared off most of my grass. It got bad enough that I put down 100 rolls of sod last summer, plus a ton of seed and I will need to do major repair again this summer. I am thinking having a lawn in the back is just a pre-BC fantasy?

 

My yard is about 1/4 acre, it does ok. I have a lot of shade in some spots which doesn't help. Each summer it comes back somewhat but then gets tracked up again. Meh. Its a dog yard. I encourage clover back there as it seems to really hold up vs grass. :D

 

My dogs tend to tread tracks in it and yes when its wet the BC in particular will left up huge divots esp when chasing squirrels and if we play frisbee. I manage the tracks by arranging lawn chairs, gates and agility equipment to force them to alter their path and make sure that when playing with toys the catch zone is in the healthiest part.

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I can only echo the recommendations for towels and hosing off. Our dog yard goes to muck when it rains a lot or when we have a very wet, melty snow, so I feel your pain! :P

But it's my experience that anything like straw or mud shavings simply makes it worse, because they get trampled in and then the dogs just drag in muddy straw or shavings. Your utility room sounds perfect, really! Just stock up on cheap Walmart towels and a rag mop and you'll be good to go! :)

~ Gloria

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I rented a place with a small, fenced in yard. The first two Borders weren't a problem. My current female is a fence runner, resulting in muddy trenches. I used coarse mulch. The bigger pieces don't stick to their feet as much. You might need to rake it back into place from time to time. I've used wood chips but they stick too easily.

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I'm in the PNW and have a wet yard w/ poor drainage. I recently laid down straw and am very happy with the results. I did a 10-15' arc around the front of the house where the dogs come in and it is helping a ton. It acts like a door mat and does a great job wiping their feet off before they come in. Don't get me wrong, there is still mud, but a fraction of what there was prior to the straw. I'll be putting out a second bale around the back door in the next few days. Thought about wood chips, but decided the straw would be easier to pick up once the sun returns and the straw doesn't seem to be getting mixed into the mud as much as I think the chips would have.

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