One of the wonderful things about living on a sailboat is that I don’t have to worry about weekend yard work. There is no more mowing, weed eating, trimming, bagging, mulching, edging, blowing, cutting, weeding, fertilizing, or anything else that even comes remotely close to the suburban nightmare of property value maintenance, neighborly goodwill, and home owner’s association rules requirements for neighborhood ego preservation.
That is until now.
We have two boat dogs.
Yes, I know. But, Jodi said it would be OK and that we must have another one to keep the first one company. Truth be told, I do love the four legged pains in the arse. Bella is the Yorkie and thinks she is from a royal blood line. Sandy is the Maltipoo and is a rambunctious, fearless, hellion.
And let’s not even mention the cat, Chynna.
Back to yard work.
The dogs need someplace to go potty. Up to this point, we have tried different mats and carpets. We’d take the mats or carpet out on their normal walks, put them down and try to get them to go potty on them or attempt to slide them under them while they were pottying all in an attempt to let them know it was OK to use them for a puppy toilet. Nothing ever worked. We had thought about just NOT taking them on a potty break and making them almost burst so that they would be forced to use the mats or carpets. We always chickened out on that as it’s kind of inhumane. Occasionally, we would find evidence that one of them had to go in the middle of the night and went on the deck. Great! But, it never materialized into anything they did regularly and we have no idea which one was doing it. Though, we do have suspicions. We also considered, only for a moment, trying to get them to use a litter box. That was tossed out as an idea quickly because it would just be a HUGE mess.
As our time to actually leave the dock is fast approaching, we had to do something.
Two utility trays and 2 pieces of sod later and we have the doggy potty garden. They both use it, though they have to be somewhat prodded, but it doesn’t take much effort to get them to go. It’s grass. Of course they’ll use it. They’ll get used to it quickly and then no one will have to even think about it other than me. Someone will have to cut the grass.
And that’s how I have lawn work on a sailboat. Because our dogs needed a bathroom.