Bloody weather. Tricks to prevent my house becoming a Tough Mudder course?

[DeathByPuppy]

Hi all

I’ve got a 14 week old lab who LOVES mud, water and general filth and unfortunately for me (but brilliant for him) there is LOTS of it about at the moment. My back garden is a quagmire and even if I stuck to walking him on pavements there is still a lot of wet leaves and muck about the place that he manages to get covered in.

Dogs get lucky and wet. I accept that. How best can I prevent my house and car from becoming filthy mudholes during these boggy wet months, until spring shows it’s face? Currently I’m wiping his feet/legs/belly with a towel when he gets in but it isn’t very useful and he seems to still be filthy.

I thought about a putting the hose on low and giving him a quick wash off when we got in but he’s scared of it, plus I think it’s a bit chilly. Though he happily wades into muddy streams and deep puddles without a backward glance, so perhaps it isn’t the temp.

How does everyone else manage the relentless mud during wet winters?

I have no answers but am sending solidarity. We have a golden retriever, a muddy garden and an open plan tiled house. It's just a nightmare. A constant feeling of sand underfoot. Bring on spring!

We have a downstairs shower that is basically the dog shower. She gets brought in through the garage and I shower her paws, legs and belly with the shower hose

She isn't that keen, but tough! Our garden is a bog, it wasn't in great shape to start with and we are clay soil.

We also have a downstairs shower which was never used before we had a dog. I'm thinking of getting it turned into a proper dog shower.

My cream carpets are trashed already and will need a good clean at the weekend.

We use a Paw cleaner like this one for our mud loving labradoodle. We put warm water in it and move the container up and down on his paws rather than moving his paws up and down. The hand dryer glove is good, bought a couple more from local shop where they are sold as dusting gloves, wash well and dry fast.

images.app.goo.gl/5vbA35wASnGyRBki8

Some more great ideas.

I’m spending a small fortune on dog toys, gadgets and towels but whatever helps!

I have a hairy, mud and water loving lurcher. I've taken to filling a large
watering can with hot water and using this on his legs and underside when we get back from a walk. Water is, by then, warm. I then towel dry him in the utility room before he has access to the rest of the house.

Hose before they come in, ditto wellies. Then into their beds which have micrfleece covers.

I have a gentle spray attachment on the hose so use that on their feet and legs. They are wimpy whippets though - might try the bucket by the back door.

I have a very hairy, mud loving dog. She's small and low to the ground so her hairy undercarriage gets filthy; she picks up leaves, grass, small slugs and all sorts, she also likes to roll in mud so gets it in the hair round her neck. Even just walking along the street she gets mucky.

When we get home from a walk I get a bucket of warm water, and one of her flannels and just wash her down.

She's very good and will offer her paws for cleaning. Once she's all cleaned off I wrap her in a towel, pick her up - realise you can't do this with a large dog - take her into the house and dry her off.

I have to dry her off on my lap because she takes ages to dry and I can't bend over her for that long.

I wear waterproof trousers over my jeans when we go for walks so a wet dog on my lap is not a problem.

Coming in from the garden though is a different matter. I keep lots of old towels handy and just try to wipe as much mud off as possible but even so it goes everywhere.

I'm trying to turn a blind eye to it until Spring. Meanwhile I just hoover a lot and wipe down the walls near the door and everything else that get splashed.

She's eight years old and it happens every winter. You sort of get used to it after a while. It's one of the pleasures that come with our furry friends, I'm afraid.

Ours get plonked straight in the bath after muddy walks - rinsed/washed with the shower head and towelled off after. We only use shampoo if he's rolled in something or has gotten spectacularly filthy.

My long haired cat is like that @pigsDOfly, collects those horrible little slugs in his armpits and a load of sticks and leaves in his long, curly belly hair . He’s beautiful but a grubby little git who loves grot but can’t groom it out of himself. It takes ages to sort him out . I seem to spend my entire life as handmaiden to these hairy blighters. I thought I was fairly au fait with mucky animals as a result of my v fluffy mucky feline but he has nothing on a diggy Labrador who needs to go out every hour/couple of hours in all weathers! I don’t know how people with multiple cats and dogs manage to keep on top of it!

I have bought some waterproof trousers.

Ours goes in the bath and muddy bits hosed off with the shower attachment. We then use micro fibre towels to dry him as much as possible. He then spends 5 minutes rubbing himself dry on our rugs (we mostly have hard floors) .

For the garden we have two sections. One section gets a lot of light and seems to survive him running after the squirrels and birds on it so stays grass rather than mud. The other section never survived after the first winter and was just mud and a bit of moss so we replaced it with artificial grass and since then our kitchen floors don't get overly dirty.

My DH is threatening me with fake grass but I’m really not keen. Maybe I’ll have changed my mind by Spring?!

DeathByPuppy Don't let DH force fake grass on you, I understand it gets very smelly if dogs pee on it and it has to be cleaned; sounds like you've got enough to clean already. Unless DH is willing to clean it, of course.

I love my waterproof trousers. I've been saying for years I'll get some but only got them this years. They're one of the best things I've ever bought.

You need equivalence for dogs! And also accept you're going to live in a muddy house 😂

Equi fleece

Equafleece is our godsend - my beagle gets filthy, but I just pull that off, wipe his paws & bung it in the washing machine. If he needs a full wash, I have one of those towelling robes to put on after so he doesn't shake / get everywhere soaking.

Yes, @pigsDOfly. I think we’ll just end up with a different set of problems with plastic grass.

DH is v big on cleaning and does put his 50% in, so would deal with the grass admin but I just don’t like it aesthetically. Even the ‘good’ ones (I’m aware it’s come a long way from the stuff in butchers’ windows). We have a very trad garden with lots of big shrubs and I think plastic grass would stick out like a sore thumb.

I'd definitely avoid fake grass. It costs a fortune if you want it to look even halfway decent and even then it acts like a sponge for dog piss. That's before the effect it has on wildlife since your garden ceases to be able to sustain birds and insects adequately. All in all, I tend to the view that it is an abomination although I also accept that the aesthetic effects of digging dogs (I have one!) isn't great. But I have only one area of the garden given over to my dog. The rest doesn't look like a scene from '1917'.

Yes, it is reminiscent of the Somme, @EnidPrunehat

I'd definitely avoid fake grass. It costs a fortune if you want it to look even halfway decent and even then it acts like a sponge for dog piss.

Yes ours was over £2500. I only need to clean it twice a year because we made sure the base was good e.g. not sand which is cheap and soaks up piss.

Totally understand why people don't want it but it has been great for us and we have a lot more space than it takes up which is devoted to grass/wildlife/flowers/birds/bees/slow worms etc.

Just googled equafleece.

Brilliant, a really good idea and I love all the pictures of little dogs in coats.

But not for us, I'm afraid.

I can just about get her to wear a coat if it's raining, sleeves would be a bridge too far.

There would be a whole lot of 'if you think I'm leaving the house done up in one of those, you can think again' attitude and, if she could speak, probably a lot of very bad language.

This is the first year that she's been willing to walk wearing any sort of coat, normally she'll just stand there looking at me refusing to budge.

I suspect it's because she hates being hot - she's built for cold weather - coats flatten her fur and I suspect overheat her.

She loves the cold and wind. She likes to sit or wander in the garden of a cold windy evening just enjoying the air, which is great when she sits in the mud.

Good to know, Bitey.

@pigsDOfly, , your girl sounds a proper character.

DeathDog isn’t big on coats, either. Doesn’t need one either, as a double coated breed. Those coats look great for breeds who do feel the chill though.

DeathByPuppy Yes, she's actually really easy and well behaved, but she does have like things done her way, which come to think of it might be why she's easy and well behaved.

She's like that on walks, if she doesn't want to go a certain way, she'll just sit down and look at me; she's very good at giving a 'hard' stare.

She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it