Petey the Wondermutt climbs a small tower of tires and nudges some rocks around with his snout, inhaling deeply. “Be careful, bud,” I tell him with no expectation that he will respond to the sounds I just made. He’s five days post upper canine tooth extraction and nursing a sore face, but our rather boring backyard just has been outfitted with new (and exciting?) random objects that I stole from the yards of my wonderful and supportive friends.
Who decided it would be a great idea to work on a backyard project during the hottest days of August with zero budget so that I could write a blog about it? Oh yeah, that was me. But I’m (mostly) not here to talk about how I boiled my brain out of my skull working in my shadeless, brick-lined backyard, or the rash I got from hauling bales of straw while I was wearing shorts. I’m here, once again, to talk about my scruffy bestie, Peter Leroy.
In my last blog, you learned about some of the ways I foster agency in Petey’s life even though he requires a lot of management. Since I had been thinking all summer about adding some elements to the backyard that would provide more sensory stimulation for Petey (and some for the humans too!), a blog deadline was just what I needed to get to work! Antecedent arrangement? Never heard of her.
The Idea
As with most ideas these days, I saw something on social media about a dog sensory garden. I knew that when Petey had the opportunity to even just lay around outside for a while and sniff the breeze, he’d usually come in and have a snooze. I knew that he asked to stay outside when it was nice, and that he often took time to just sniff all around the boundaries of our yard, even if it was something he’s done a million times. After all, there might be a new and important scent to process hidden under a single piece of gravel. So I followed some social media tags, joined a Facebook group, and started jotting down ideas.
Management in the yard is just as, if not more, important than inside the house. We have a tall fence that obscures most visual stimuli around the yard. Seeing a trigger comes with a barking, growling, lunging brand of hyperfocus that is very difficult to interrupt. So a new layer of x-pen in front of the chain link gate entrance to the yard was step one in securing a little sanctuary for my big-brained big-feelie guy. (Yo dog, I heard you like a fence so we added a fence to your fence!)
My main focus, aside from spending as little money as possible, was to create more nooks and crannies to sniff and investigate (and hide snacks in for backyard foraging games), to add some novel textures, some structures to climb, and to plant some things that might smell or taste interesting. Petey says veggies are for suckers, but he not only physically resembles a scruffy little goat, he also grazes like one when he can find new, tender shoots of grass, so I sprung for a bag of oat grass seeds.
Finally, I wanted some sound masking for neighborhood sounds such as a wind chime and/or water fountain sounds. These will likely come later in the process when I have a bit of a budget.
As with all enrichment options, this will be an iterative process with lots of trial and eval. Anything I put together I wanted to be able to rearrange as we see what works and what doesn’t, and also to add some novelty. I have a lot of data/knowledge based on our years together, but bringing it all together for the sensory garden is a new, and I hope fun, application.
How to Sweat to Death Without Really Trying
There is a strange space between the fence and our garage that has historically served as Petey’s dig pit and log shredding area. Sometimes a small mammal shows up for him to track, and I just let whatever pops up grow back there; usually just Virginia creeper vines and pokeweed, which had lots of dangly purple berries by the time I started to pull them out to make way for what I was about to set up in that space.
Back to me pretending I have farm gal constitution. Spoiler: I do not. I am essentially allergic to any plant that dares touch my skin. The human keeper of my heart and Petey’s Best Frenemy, Big Man, brought home some old tires and bales of straw, and then ended up working all weekend. So I climbed in and out of the bed of his truck by myself to haul these items into the yard. I yanked up the pokeweed, which thanked me by staining my skin purple. I cut down clumps of grape vine from the fence since it tends to grow faster and farther and choke out the Virginia creeper, which I like for the pretty shades of red it turns in the fall. I wedged myself behind the decorative grass that grows in front of the area I was clearing out (and got big welts on my arms and legs). Once cleared out, in went some straw bales for parkour and/or shredding, and down went a layer of straw for ground cover. Did I just build a castle for mice? Possibly. It’s all trial and eval, baybee! Petey seemed excited to snuff around in the layer of straw, and I earned myself a very long shower for my blotchy, itchy skin and screaming sinuses.
The temp had dropped a bit by the time I tackled weeding the rest of the back yard. But my ADHD hyperfocus wouldn’t let me stop or eat or drink enough water until the weeds were gone and the patio swept, so I added a migraine to the list of merit badges earned during this project.
One Person’s Trash is Some Dog’s Treasure
If you live in a city where Facebook Marketplace is useful, I am very happy for you. After looking locally for weeks, I had only seen a few viable options for freebies on Marketplace, but somehow a lot of (not free) toilets, and many ways to probably bring home bed bugs (also not for free). So I put out a request to my own network, and they came through with the following:
- Logs – Great for climbing and shredding!
- Cinder blocks – Structure and space to plant things.
- Clay pipe – Hidey hole for critters and/or snacks when we play find it.
- Plant starts – Sage and mint smell good for everyone.
- Rocks – More hidey spots and/or structure.
Finally, the blood, sweat, and tears I had shed were leading me somewhere, and I had some materials to work with. A stack of tires with rocks inside might not look like much, but Petey has been climbing up and turning those rocks over! I was starting to change the space into something we could all enjoy.
Scents and Sensibility
Lest this post lean too heavily on story time, let’s take a look at how this all came together as far as covering categories of enrichment.
To save space, I’ve combined some of the fourteen categories, and not listed others. If you have experience using the enrichment framework, you know there is a lot of overlap in the way the categories are experienced and utilized.
Next year I hope to plant more dog-friendly things that also flower, and to get some kind of structure, either just rope or long limbs, to encourage the Virginia creeper to grow into a tunnel/tent. We’ll keep seeing what is most interesting for Petey, and see if there are areas we need to improve for him or for the humans. After all, we’re never done tweaking our enrichment charts!
Come Together, Right Now (Over Pete)
Let’s bring the humans in now. When you have a very small backyard that is mostly bricks and has zero natural shade and with no grass, preventing it from smelling like a dog toilet is a major factor for the humans of the household to enjoy the space as well. To that end, I invested in a product from Simple Green called Outdoor Odor Eliminator (not sponsored). I rather enjoy the smell of the normal Simple Green cleaner, so spraying the mulch area where Petey does his bathroom biz will be yet another chance for trial and eval in the great experiment.
Since the sound masking elements are not yet part of Pete’s Haus of Senses, we are currently relying on the trusty Bluetooth speaker playing 80’s new wave while we hang out. I would be remiss to not shout out my dad for putting together a sun screen and adding an umbrella to our picnic table, which makes it possible to sit in the backyard at all (thanks Dad!!), and for Petey to regulate his body temperature. As the first human to spend an afternoon working in the backyard under the canopy, 80’s jams playing, while Petey alternated resting spots and checking out the new elements, I can tell you we had a real nice time. Remember, enrichment strategies are meant to help everyone in a household meet their needs!
I could not have put this all together without a little help from my friends (is this blog becoming a Beatles album?). It really takes a village sometimes to help out our big feeling pals, and that’s certainly been the case for Petey. From online love and support, to professional veterinary and training services, to friends letting us burgle their gardens, to friends and family funding vet and VB trips and Treat ‘n Trains (thanks, Mom!), to folks just letting me vent when life is hard; we couldn’t do what we do for Petey without our community. So let me take a moment to say to every single human who has ever loved my handsome, brilliant, goofy, complicated dude: Thanks for being awesome. I love you. May his joy in this space serve as a testament to what we can do when we observe and learn and take care of each other.
Now What?
Now that you’ve seen a very tiny yard transformation with very simple changes ponder the following:
- How do you incorporate sensory input into your pet’s lives?
- What are some of their favorite activities?
- Are there (indoor or outdoor) spaces in your home or yard that you can add more ways for them to use their senses and process information?
- Can you think of some ways to also make the spaces more enjoyable for the human members of your family?
Happy Training!
Tiffany
I also have a high-management dog, a small yard, and a sensory garden. It’s fulfilling work to grow and transform it over time, and I love watching my dog engage with his garden – and with us in his garden – in so many positive ways. I hope to hear more about your journey as your project progresses!
Yay! Thanks for your comment.
I’m already looking forward to some spring additions, but I also hope we get some snow this year and can have some fun with the structures we’ve set out. We’ll keep trialing new stuff and see what works! We’ve already spent more time out there with just the simple budget-friendly changes we’ve made.
I love this so much…now I’m inspired to create a sensory garden in my backyard!!!
Let us know how it turns out!!