The new gardener is in town....

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

When we bought our house in 2009, we did not have a dog on our minds. We live in the north suburbs of Denver so all the city houses have really small backyards, which was not an issue for us. We picked a house with a landscaped, low maintenance yard. Some rocks, some grass, some bushes. It even had a couple of garden areas for me.

Several months later we've decided to get Monty. There was an occasional digging, but nothing major. Our yard looked green and lush even with Monty's frolicking. Life was good:

I used one of my garden spots to create a designated digging place for Monty. The original idea was to get the dirt out and bring in sand, but that never materialized.

If you look at some of my older videos, you will see how green and jungle-like my backyard was.

Then came Auggie, the new self-appointed gardener...and nothing was safe from his inspection.

Bushes and trees? They need to be trimmed:

Shortly after Auggie's arrival, we put in bigger steps for the dogs to launch on and a "sidewalk" to the pee-pee side of the house:

The gardener Auggie never cared about the designated pee and poo side... his ideology was that every part of the backyard needs to be fertilized...

So after Auggie's care and just a blunt force trauma of 160 lbs+ of running speed, out backyard looks like this in the spring:

The grass is gone and so are probably the bushes:

The weed barrier has been ripped out, so the only thing that will grow in our backyard IS the weed:

And the digging spot is caving in because the dogs were digging too deep:

Other than that, we have a marry household. Once I win the lottery, I will buy a house with a lot of acreage for the dogs to run and dig. In the meantime, I'm happy my dogs are happy and healthy. Screw the backyard.

 

[GBK]

Hmmm, totally understand Jarka!  Small yard = struggle to keep any green grass, full bushes, and rocks in place :)  But, as long as doods are happy, so are we!

[Lynette Main]

I fell the same way. I once had a beautiful ,landscape yard,beautiful flowers,great grass,no weeds. I'm embarrassed to have anyone look out the window. A cow pasture has suddenly become my back yard. BUT WHO CARES... I love my Three Doodles more than my yard....

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

At least you have dry earth lol all I have is a big patch of mud where the grass used to be... I'm too old to give a dam,as long as the boys are happy. I keep thinking artificial grass or hard landscaping. If anyone has a small dog friendly garden I would love to see it. It's amazing the difference the addition that one dog could make.