The Rain In Spain and SoCal

We're the unfortunate victims of lousy drainage in the ever-so-itty-bitty plot of land we call our back yard. Consequently, when it rains, the water pools and stands...and stands. For the first year we were here, this wasn't much of a problem. We had one small dog, ten years old, and he went outside, did his business, and came back in. He hated water with a passion, except for delicate drinking, and tiptoed daintily over any other wetness he encountered.

Well, unfortunately for us, we lost that dog and through various circumstances, two others have come to live with us. These two dogs, however, do NOT have the same attitude towards water that the first one did. Indeed, these two LOVE the entire notion of close encounters with water, especially as it pertains to mixing with dirt!

Doggy One and Doggy Two take to the outdoors first thing every morning, catapulting out of their crates with the enthusiasm that only comes from being 14 month old puppies. One is substantially bigger than the other, and a different breed (pitbull), but that doesn't slow them down much. After their morning constitutionals, and traditional sniffing of butts, they commence their zooming.

We have a long narrow yard; so they do "laps"; round and round they go. We see one chasing the other down the yard past the window; a few seconds later we see them headed the other way, and the other is now in the lead. On and on it goes: first one is the chaser, then the other. There's a tremendous amount of vicious growling that goes along with this, as well as tumbling and mouthing and every once in a while you see the small dog with his head entirely in the pitbull's mouth. We usually holler at that point. It's not something one is comfortable seeing, given the reputation of a pitbull, despite us knowing that she's a bit of a pansy.

Then they'll stop and the pitbull will tackle the small dog and beat the crap out of him, pinning him on the ground and viciously mauling him while he struggles. Two minutes later, she'll stop, roll over and wait for HIM to tackle HER...."COME ON, dammit, it's YOUR TURN!" And he'll straddle her neck and choke her, and occasionally hump the hell out of her.

Then it's back to racing: up and down, up and down. She can outlast him, because she's bigger and stronger, so they've worked out a deal: when he needs a break, he jumps up on a berm at the end of the yard and just stops, and rests. She waits below him, and watches. When he's ready to go, he takes off, and away she goes after him! It's amazing what communication these two have.

The downside of all this is the poor drainage. It's been raining for two weeks, and our back yard, once a pretty green oasis, has turned into a mud pit at the hands (or paws) of these two renegades! One end of the yard is comprised entirely of soft, sloppy, wet mud, and of course that's their favoured end, up near the berm. They race and dive and roll, and there's no way for me to keep them out of it because after two weeks the area isn't just a "spot": it continues on around a corner and down along the yard....and grows.....

And so each and EVERY time they go out, they play. And each time, they head for that area, which is still wet, and each time they drag that mud and muck into the house. I cannot keep it clean! I have towels by the door and they skulk in looking guilty every time I open the door because they KNOW I'm going to tag them by the collars and make some effort to clean their feet before banishing them to their crates til their feet are dry!

Ah well, when the rainy season is over, it's ASTRO-TURF TIME!

And once that's done, I'll try to figure out how to stop them from digging up my damned roses!