# Removing a winters worth of poo in the back yard?



## PoointheYard (Mar 7, 2009)

Hola,

So my wife is away this weekend, and I've embarked on the task of cleaning up our back yard with 4 months worth of winter poop sitting in it. Lovely how she wants dogs yet does nothing to clean up after them. End rant. Anyway, I shoveled for about 30 mins and was barely made a dent. The ground is soft and the crap is stuck to it mostly, so is there any magical dissolving potion one uses to decompose dog poop? This spring I'll make a dog composting thing for our dogs (Boxer and Great Dane puppy) but for now I just gotta get rid of all this crap. Any thoughts?


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## Inga (Jun 16, 2007)

One thought to make your chore easier... teach your dogs to only go in one area of your yard and then scoop a little more often. Sounds like you have a whole weekend of fun ahead of you. What do you do with it once scooped?


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## KaseyT (May 7, 2008)

http://www.petbutler.com/pbx/


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## DJsMom (Jun 6, 2008)

We use a specified rake in the spring - rake it into piles & don the heavy duty gloves & a shovel to put it into bags. It's yucky!


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## Mudra (Nov 1, 2007)

First of all... why did you wait 4 months before deciding on picking up dogs poop?  I cant imagine what my yard would look like with 4 months worth of poop. I never miss a day. I have three dogs and they all poop like dinosaurs. I pick up poop twice a day. Mid day and before the sun goes down. I dont like the idea of my dogs rolling in poop (frozen even) while they are playing.

One tip. Dont wait for the spring before you clean up everything. Thawing dogs poop is NOT very pleasant to clean up. Even I, who picks up twice a day still had to deal with that whenever spring comes because of those that I wasnt able to pick up that were buried in snow.

GOOD LUCK!


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## DJsMom (Jun 6, 2008)

LoL, some people are better at keeping up with it than others.
This year, I know I have fallen behind, at least this past crazy week. And some times some of it's just missed by those of us that just aren't so on the ball, it's hard to find all of it under snow & ice & other yard debris, so I think it's a good idea to do a good, thorough spring cleaning of the yard anyway.


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## Lil Red Express (Jan 18, 2009)

Good Luck with that job . I have one dog and go out back 3 X a week to clean up , no matter what the weather . Its MUCH better to deal with it when its frozen , trust me


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## sheltiemom (Mar 13, 2007)

There is probably some sort of service you could pay to clean it up for you...or throw a neighborhood kid 20 bucks or something.


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## ACampbell (Oct 7, 2007)

My yard thawed out...it was pretty icky. My husband and I used 2 different rakes...one that was stiff enough to get it up off the ground, and the other to make a pile...then we used a snow shovel and a plastic bag...cleaned up all the trash and dog poop...seems like my yard is the local garbage dump in the winter, I was not happy with how much trash I found out there, that my family didn't put there.


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## 123fraggle (Feb 20, 2009)

I can sympathize with the spring clean up. We have a dog run for 4 dogs and the snow here, and the dark hours make it almost impossible to get everything. I usually wait until the mud season is over, by then all the poop is dried up pancakes and easy to pick up with the old plastic bag on the hand method. Once everything is picked up, raked up and dry DH goes out with watered down bleach and sprays it to get rid of the urine smell. The dogs are not allowed in the run for 2 days after that. In the dry, warm months the run is cleaned daily and the bleach is used about every 2 weeks. Right now we have a sand and gravel mixture in the run, but are thinking of putting sidewalk blocks down on most of it so the pee will evaporate better and not soak down into the ground. The urine smell is much worse than the poop smell in the summer.:0


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## PoointheYard (Mar 7, 2009)

Thanks for the replies. I guess I thought it would be a good idea to do it whilst it was warm, but perhaps I was mistaken. I'm sure it'll get cold again, and that's when I should go out there so it breaks off. Good for you folks who go out twice a day in 2 feet of snow to pick up dog crap. I am not one of those people.

Edit: Also, my Dane puppy appears to be dumber than a box of rocks, and happily traipses through piles of crap, puddles of pee, and brings it every where in the house. Maybe I'm the dumb one. But my 2 year old Boxer must have a poo sensing radar, and jumps around piles of crap like they're land mines. She won't get her toes wet if there's any puddle of any kind on the ground. She never touches it. God bless her. She's my baby dog. My wife HAD to have a Great Dane, and I'm very much regretting it.


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## Joebas (Dec 23, 2007)

PoointheYard said:


> Hola,
> 
> So my wife is away this weekend, and I've embarked on the task of cleaning up our back yard with 4 months worth of winter poop sitting in it. Lovely how she wants dogs yet does nothing to clean up after them. End rant. Anyway, I shoveled for about 30 mins and was barely made a dent. The ground is soft and the crap is stuck to it mostly, so is there any magical dissolving potion one uses to decompose dog poop? This spring I'll make a dog composting thing for our dogs (Boxer and Great Dane puppy) but for now I just gotta get rid of all this crap. Any thoughts?


Thats funny, as I went through the same thing a couple of weeks ago. I have 4 dogs. Took me hours, but i'm all caught up now. I pick up once a week.


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## rogueslg71 (Dec 6, 2007)

you should probably hire a place (just look up on google a businesses that are local who clean up dog poop, search terms like 'pooper scooper', etc) and pay them to come however many times a week since obviously you and your wife dont want to do the job. i would suggest doign that now to remove it too and start over once they are done. you should probably start budgeting for it since great dane poop is pretty big and will probably get bigger as it the puppy grows up so its not going to get easier.


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## BobSD (Feb 1, 2008)

Being somewhat of a poop expert, and cold weather, even when we have a warm spell, only the surface part of the poop has thawed, so if you try to remove it you will live a slice still in the ground, and that will still be there to accidentally step in. So best to wait untill you can remove it all! I call it poop patrol.


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## Crislill (Apr 9, 2020)

PoointheYard said:


> Hola,
> 
> So my wife is away this weekend, and I've embarked on the task of cleaning up our back yard with 4 months worth of winter poop sitting in it. Lovely how she wants dogs yet does nothing to clean up after them. End rant. Anyway, I shoveled for about 30 mins and was barely made a dent. The ground is soft and the crap is stuck to it mostly, so is there any magical dissolving potion one uses to decompose dog poop? This spring I'll make a dog composting thing for our dogs (Boxer and Great Dane puppy) but for now I just gotta get rid of all this crap. Any thoughts?


Im following this thread for advive too lol our backyard is horrible. We live in an area that we literally had 4 feet of snow in our back yard so we are not able to keep up with it all Winter long. There is still snow but certain areas have melted away. ive just been going out and doing little areas as it melts away. I use a rack and a scoop. Just seems like there is/should be a better way.


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## RonE (Feb 3, 2007)

You're following a thread that is eleven years old. Please start a new one.


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