A Dog Yard Remodel

 Our new puppy is going to be joining our household one week from today.  I'm pretty excited while, at the same time, realizing that our mornings of sleeping in on the weekends and lazing about in the evenings are going to be over for awhile.  Life will be assuming the tempo of "new parents."

One of the last things to deal with was our fenced-in dog yard.  It opens up from our sunporch and is just a small portion of our total yard.  We have always used it to let Fresca, the Wonder Dog go out and in to do her business.  She was never left out there any longer than it took her to "sniff and go" but still, the dog yard was in terrible shape.  There were bare patches where we just couldn't get grass to grow and these areas always turned into a muddy mess any time it rained.  I didn't want to bring our new puppy into this mess.

 I did a lot of research looking at pictures on the Web and reading the few books dealing with "pet landscaping."  I finally came up with a plan of what I wanted.  I basically wanted a Zen-garden look.  With every marriage there are always compromises, so the Commander and I put our heads together and then consulted with our landscaper and this is what we ended up with.  We decided on a combination of mulched areas and pathways of crushed stone.

The crew showed up the first day and laid the framework for the stone paths.  They also covered the entire area with heavy-duty landscaping fabric and put the mulch down in the areas where we wanted mulch to go.

The next day they brought in the rock and put that in the pathways.  After hauling lots of wheelbarrel-fulls of rock, they tamped it all down and watered it thoroughly.

One feature that our landscaper had suggested was to break up the path area with a small structural piece in the middle.  We remembered that we had a birdbath that had been languishing in our garage for several years and told him about it.  "Perfect," he said.  I have to agree.  I really like that feature and so do the birds.

The Commander wanted room to put our big gas grill so that it wouldn't have to be kept in the garage and pulled out into the driveway every time we grill.  He got his wish.  Now he can keep it in the back corner of the dog yard, I think.  We'll see how it works.

Here's the view from the far corner of the dog yard looking toward the sunporch.  It was late afternoon so I'm sorry about the shadows in the pictures.

So the plan is to encourage the new puppy to use the mulched area to the right of the steps when he goes outside.  We're quite pleased with how it turned out, although we both agree that we wish we had installed more rock, instead of so much mulch.  (Hmmph.....that WAS my original vision.)  But we can always have the landscaper enlarge the paths next year, after we've had some time to watch how the dog utilizes the space.

One thing is for sure, though.  It looks 100% better than it did several days ago.  Now we just need to add our little guy to the picture.

Of Piddles, Puppies, and Poo

In ten days, the Commander and I will be picking up this little guy and he'll be joining our family.  I can't wait.   However, I'm not going into this with oblivious optimism either.  I KNOW what is ahead.  We're making a big-time commitment to our puppy to train him and help him be a responsible member of canine society, not to mention a beloved member of our family.

After fifteen years, I'm going to be potty-training a puppy once more.  It's like childbirth.  You kind of selectively forget those days.  The big difference this time is that I'm going to be home and not working.  I hope that makes it easier on all of us.  I've also been reading lots of books on potty-training a dog.  Hey, I'm a reader.  What can I say?  I've already picked out some good ideas and noticed some things that we did wrong with our Fresca the Wonder Dog.  She ended up potty trained quite well (even rang bells to go outside SO successfully that I eventually had to take the darn bells and hide them) but I see where I could have made it easier on both of us.

We're also having the dog yard portion of our yard re-landscaped.  It has always been a disaster.  We could never get grass to grow there with any degree of success because it is in a totally shaded area.  Even after Fresca passed away, grass still wouldn't grow.  When it rained, it would turn into a muddy mess.  Fresca shed dirt with no problem but she would track mud into the house so I was always having to wipe her paws whenever she'd go in and out to do her business.  This little Westie will probably have the tendency to be a digger.  It's a characteristic of the breed.  I'm not going to give him a muddy playground.  That's a recipe for disaster.

Consequently, we are having ALL of the grass removed.  The landscapers have arrived today and are in the process of transforming the dog yard into a vision I've had all along......more of a zen garden type of place.  There will be sections of mulch and crushed rock paths with a spot in the center for a bird bath.  The dog will be able to go potty on the rock paths or on the mulch.  I don't really care.  We can replenish the mulch each year and hose off the rock and keep things cleaned easier than sloughing through muddy patches looking for poo.  That's the theory, anyway.  Only time will tell if I'm correct.

I'll keep you posted on how the dog yard turns out.  Until then, I'm off to read about "dog socialization."  Happy Yapping!