Garden - what to use instead of large pebbles?

[TheChip]

I'm getting my back garden done very soon.

There is an area that is roughly 4m x3m that currently has large stones/pebbles. This spot is great as the dogs like to do their business on there.

Ideally I'd like to just brick it all, but at least the way it is, the dogs pee filters down into soil under the pebbles. Id imagine the garden would just end up stinking if it was all bricks.
However, I'm not overly keen on these stones/pebbles.

Fake grass is out of the question. Bark is also out of the question. Any suggestions, or is it looking like I'm just going to have to replace with more of the same?

Gravel with some of the big stones too. Like a Japanese Zen garden?

That is a really good idea! I'm going to spend the next hour looking up ideas for that. Thank you!

But if it’s little gravel it will stick to the dogs poo .

Yeah I'll have to stick to the bigger stones like I have now, but fit the zen style around that.

With the zen idea I thought of the bigger stone pebbles, but in a different colour. Either charcoal or white. Maybe even both. Then with bigger randomly placed slate looking uneven slabs dotted about.
I could even add a fake bozai tree haha