The backyard went from frozen to soup in about three days last week. Monday morning, the path from the back step to the garage was ice with a skin of meltwater on top. By Thursday afternoon it was the kind of mud that makes a sucking sound when you lift your boot, and Hank stood at the end of his leash looking at it, then at me, as if I'd arranged the whole thing personally.
Last March I set up a paw-washing station by the back door: a boot tray, a stack of towels and a scrubber cup. It worked, mostly. "Mostly" covered a lot of wet floor. This spring we changed four things, and the back entry has stayed a lot drier, so here's round two.
What went wrong last year
The station itself was fine. The trouble was everything around it.
- Clean and dirty towels shared one hook, so by midweek nothing on that hook was really clean, and the whole entry smelled like wet dog.
- Hank shook in the doorway every single time. The door, the wall and occasionally my face got the spray.
- Between the tray and the kitchen there were about four feet of bare oak. Hank can cover that in one stride and still leave four brown prints.
- I was crouching on the floor to do his feet, so the front two got done carefully and the back two got "good enough."
What we changed
The bench. Caleb built the mudroom bench last September for $132 in lumber, hooks and stain, and this is its first mud season. Folded towels live in the bin underneath and the scrubber cup sits on the end of the seat. Having somewhere to sit while I do paws means all four get the same attention.
A second towel hook. This sounds too small to mention and made the biggest difference. The left hook holds the clean towel in use. The right hook holds wet ones waiting for the trip to the basement washer. We keep eight towels in rotation, so there's always a dry one in the bin, and the wet ones go downstairs every night.
A washable runner. When Hank came home from knee surgery in January, we bought three washable runner rugs so he wouldn't slip on the oak floors. Now that the exercise pen is gone and he's walking more, one runner moved to the back entry. It covers the bare stretch, catches whatever the towel missed and goes through the wash on Saturdays. Honestly, half the reason was traction. The spot where a wet dog comes in is the slickest floor in the house, and that left knee has had enough excitement for one year.
The sit-and-wait rule. This one is about Hank, not equipment. He comes in, steps onto the tray and sits, and he stays there until I say "okay." No okay, no kitchen. Sitting earns a piece of kibble (counted out of his daily amount, since we're still working off his crate-rest pounds), and he caught on in about a week. If he needs to shake, he does it on the tray now, mostly.
How it goes now
Start to finish, it takes about two minutes:
- Before we go out, I hang a clean towel on the left hook and fill the scrubber cup halfway with lukewarm water.
- Coming in, Hank steps onto the tray and sits.
- Each paw gets a few twists in the cup and then the towel, back feet last and gently.
- A quick wipe of his belly and legs, then "okay," and he heads for his water bowl.
- Wet towel to the right hook, muddy water tossed off the back step.
Mabel supervises all of this from the kitchen doorway, on the dry side of the threshold, close enough to see everything and far enough that nothing can splash her.
One thing is working in our favor this year. Hank is still on leash for every trip into the yard while his knee finishes healing, so he walks through the mud instead of tearing laps in it, and this has been the cleanest spring we've ever had. I'm aware that advantage expires the day his surgeon clears him for off-leash play.
What I'd still fix
The boot tray is too small for a dog Hank's size. His front feet fit and his back feet hang off the edge, so I'm watching for a bigger one with a taller lip. The runner also creeps toward the kitchen about an inch a day, and I keep nudging it back with my foot. It needs a rug pad, which is on the list.
The forecast says 50 degrees and rain on Saturday. The towels are folded, and Hank is asleep by the back door, already in position.
