It seems like this has been the wettest winter in several years. We have had a long period of rain interspersed with just a few cloudy but dry days here and there and a couple rare sunshine days too. All of this rain makes Belle’s dog pen very muddy. To make matters worse, the grass around the gate to the pen died before winter due to some sloppy weed-eating around the edges of the pen and there isn’t much of anything to keep the soil turning to mud.
After Belle’s recent surgery, I’ve been keeping her indoors almost all of the time, only taking her out briefly for bathroom breaks. Even still, her belly and legs get muddy and I have to towel her off when she gets back inside.
Yesterday I went out of town, so I had to leave Belle outside for the majority of the day. Although it wasn’t raining, her pen was VERY muddy. It’s important to keep my dog clean until the stitches come out, so I did what I could to make her pen more palatable.
Pine straw covering muddy spots
She also has another wood palette in the corner of her pen that gives her a place to lay that is off of the ground. This is really useful when the ground is as wet and muddy as it is right now. It also provides a little more warmth than cold ground in winter.
My neighbor, Ms. Virginia, who owns a Jack Russell and another mixed breed dog, bought a bale of hay for her backyard this week. It helps her dogs stay out of the mud a bit better.
Although these aren’t the best options - a concrete floor in a pen would probably work best, they are temporary solutions to the wet ground in your backyard and help prevent your dog from getting too muddy during rainy seasons.
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