Anyone with a side or back yard can create a sane, sanitary and convenient toilet area for the family dog.
Instructions
1. You've already toilet trained your dog, so going outside is routine. Wouldn't it be great if Fido went in one area, so it could be kept up, and you could control the aroma? Create a dog toilet area in a small patch of underused yard space. All you need are a few bags of hardwood mulch, or play sand, and a few pieces of wood that act as separation from the lawn.
2. Identify a convenient area in your side or back yard. It doesn't have to be huge, maybe only 8 by 8 feet or more. If it's grassy, dig down 2 inches and remove the grass. Dig a trench just big enough to fit railroad ties or pressure treated timbers or 4 by 4's at the border adjoining the grass. Cover the area with hardwood mulch 2 or more inches deep with a rake. If you don't like mulch, then use play sand.
3. Here's the only hard part. Just as you taught your pooch to go outside, now teach him to go in the dog area. The most efficient way is to wait until he needs to go out. Take him on leash to his new dog area and wait with him. When he takes care of his business, praise him like crazy. Repeat a dozen times. Then repeat without the leash until the idea of the toilet area is fixed in his mind.
4. Once a week or as often as you like, clean up the obvious evidence. Change the mulch once or twice a year.
5. For male dogs, add one or two short sections of tree trunk set on a flat end. To a dog, that's a fire hydrant!
Tips Warnings
We like hardwood because it doesn't decompose as fast as other kinds of mulch like pine bark. Sand works fine, but Fido will be more likely to track it back into the house. Hardwood mulch will stay in the yard. Either lets you see Fido's products easily come cleanup time.
No construction permit is required for this yard improvement in most communities.
You can skip the sand or mulch and just let Fido go on the grass, but it'll be patches of mud in no time as the grass is killed by Fido's acidic deposits.
Tags: toilet, area, your, yard, toilet area, back yard, play sand, side back, side back yard
