The dogs spend their day in the smaller side-yard off of my kitchen. Every couple of weeks, I hose everything off back there, and every couple of months, I tidy it up a bit more- rearranging the stepping stones and gradually replacing bark with rock.
I didn’t take before or after shots, because basically, it looks the same, just with rocks now. My first plan included covering the whole area with bark, but there are two problems with that. One, Casey-dog had some issues with boredom/anxiety induced digging when she first started staying in the yard by herself, and bark is far more pleasant for dogs to dig in compared to rocks. The second issue is that in the rain, bark is still kinda muddy. Rocks both make the area less fun for digging, and more mud-proof.
Over time, I also brought in stepping stones (from other, forgotten parts of the yard) to make less and less of the yard diggable. And I’ve begun the transition from bark to rock, but only in the patch on the other side of the kitchen door, until now. With the rain coming (and the rain is here!) I decided it was time to freshen things up and add more rocks.
The rocks are so heavy. My back is still sore from all of that hauling.
Today was the first day the dogs stayed outside during a rainy day. (Casey has before, but this is the first time with both dogs.) I was worried that I would come home to soaked, muddy dogs, but no! Both of them had completely clean feet (meaning there was no digging today!), and both were only a little bit sprinkly, which probably happened as they were waiting for me to let them in after I got home. There isn’t that much of a dry area out there, so I’m really curious what they did all day. Did they both hang out in the doghouse together?
I’m totally planning on sticking a webcam of some kind out there so I can see what they do all day.
Probably something similar to what they do in the evenings:
