Best gravel for dogs?

[MrsL123]

My garden is trashed! We got a new patio laid at the top end of the garden on Thursday, and they're building the base for our new decking-patio-thing at the bottom of the garden today. And the bit in the middle, which used to be lawn, is now just piles of mud with a nice bit of concrete dust thrown in! It wasn't that great before all the work - we've got very heavy clay soil that doesn't drain, so with the snow and the dogs trampling through it all winter it's turned it into a mud bath. This week it's been so bad the dogs wouldn't even walk on it - they'll roll in fox poo but won't walk on the muddy grass to have a wee

It's not a huge area, about 20ft x 30ft, so we're not going to bother getting more grass put down. They're pretty easy-going about what they toilet on (they'll even go on sand), so we'll probably get some kind of gravel - what type is best for their paws? Is normal pee pea gravel ok? Their paw pads are pretty tough but I don't want anything too sharp. DH wants to put bark chips down because they're easier and cheaper, but I think they'll end up stinking (and it'll look like a playpark).

Any ideas?

I don't like bark either, MrsL but if you do go for anything like that make sure it's not the stuff made from cocoa shells as it's toxic to dogs.

My dogs cope fine with normal, bog standard gravel

Thanks bella, was starting to get a complex that nobody is talking to me, obviously fencing is more exciting than gravel

By normal gravel do you just mean pea stuff like this? That's the stuff I was thinking of, but up here they class normal gravel as this stuff. I'd class those as stone chips myself, but DH calls it gravel. This is just one of those wierd english/scottish divide things DH experience occasionally

Lol MrsL - your thread certainly lacks the entertainment value of some others!!!

No, mine isn't as posh as your link. Ours is stone chips from the quarry - I believe '20mm to dust' is the technical term. About £300 for 10 tonnes or something, but we had to do a large area. Oh, and a big fence too: me, dh, pig wire, stakes and a post thumper

I find your thread exciting and could talk at length about gravel and clay gardens.

We have done a lot of work on our garden which is clay due to the dogs ruining anysort of lawn.

We have finally ended up with what we have now for the last couple of years.

We have sectioned our garden and built fences and gates (yes, it is possible). We also extended our patio area.

Our dogs now leave our back door to go onto a large patio area with a roof on it and surroundign walls.( no more wet dogs everytime they go to the toilet).

THis leads to their toilet area.
We dug a drainage thing (cant remember what they are called) under the ground as the nearest drain was too far. We then put rubble down and covered with the type of gravel in your first link.

The dogs only go to the toilet on the gravel. We was it down regularily with biolgoical powder dissolved in warm water.

EVery few months or so we top up the gravel as bits get picked up when collecting poo.

THe actual toilet area is quite small as we realised after having a larger gravelled toilet area that they were only using it as a toilet and not as an bit to exercise on.

The actual toilet but isnt under shelter I should add so does also get washed by the rain.

lol MrsL. I thought this was a tongue in cheek thread about what type of stones dogs prefer to eat.

My puppy is mostly enjoying chewing on slate gravel (despite a veritable smorgasbord of proper chew toys available)

I think rainbow gets the Sexy Garden award. That sounds fab, rainbow

It's very dog orientated, Bella. We have gates to leading to their toilet area so if we have guests for a bbq who are scared of dogs we can put them on the other side where they can see us and get to the loo. Further gates leading to the garden where they are allowed by invite as they wreck the grass otherwise.