My backyard smells like "Hot-Baked-Pee"...help!

[FaithfulOne]

We have a yard that is half deck and half dirt, the latter of that our Boxer "Roger" uses as his defication domain.
The smell is becoming a real nuisance. It's so bad we rarely use our yard for family meals or even just hanging out.
Any suggestions on ways to keep the odor to a minimum? I just sprinkled some baking soda on his most used areas, so we'll see as the day progresses and if that was useless.
It helps too when I water down the area but the mud that comes form that is yet another issue

[Ola_]

Hmm, I was going to suggest watering it as that helps to dillute things. How about spreading some gravel over the dirt to help with the mud situation? Or planting some very durable ground cover? Maybe something that smells nice too, like thyme or mint?

[Pepper44]

Get garden/lawn lime and put that in his spots then water it into the ground. I use it in my chicken pens and it works great.

[heartmama]

It requires discipline and work on your part but he should be trained to go in one spot only, every single time. There is no other way to really solve the problem. If you let a carnivore poop and pee all over the place, it is going to stink up the yard. Training him to go to his 'spot' each and every time will make it easy to isolate and deodorize that area.

[FaithfulOne]

Thank you all SO much

I will try the lime, we plan to get some gravel as soon as $$ permits and I will definately start taking him to one spot. I guess putting him on leash and taking him to the preferred spot would work? I even bought some lattice that I haven't yet put up. My plan was to isolate his area in an effort to minimize its smell etc.

Again, Thank you!

[buttercup784ever]

Originally Posted by heartmama

It requires discipline and work on your part but he should be trained to go in one spot only, every single time. There is no other way to really solve the problem. If you let a carnivore poop and pee all over the place, it is going to stink up the yard. Training him to go to his 'spot' each and every time will make it easy to isolate and deodorize that area.

I try to NOT get my dog to do this. He'll go in the same place and kill the grass!

My suggestion for OP is to try and get some grass growing on all that dirt. Throw some fast growing grass seed down. That way when your dog 'goes' if it's too pungent you can hose it down without turning your yard into a mud wrestling ring! Grass seed is cheaper than gravel.

[heartmama]

Buttercup--the idea is to create a pee spot that doesn't have grass.

People I know who spot trained dogs started by leashing them and walking them to a chosen spot and using a phrase like "Spot, spot!!" associated with it. You might set up a little lattice screen and lay down some pine straw or other soft ground cover. When the dog goes, you can reward him with a treat and praise him highly.

Eventually (once he starts to expect to go to his spot and do his business without hesitation) you can let the dog off leash a few feet from the spot and point to it and see if the command "Go spot, spot!!" gets him to go ahead on his own. Stay back a little further each time until he can go out in the yard alone on the command "Go spot, spot!!"--usually the dog will race over to his spot, pee, and race back for his reward. It takes time and patience but the reward is a dog that is more or less litter box trained, but outdoors *lol*

[buttercup784ever]

I understand now. I've never found a need to train him to do that, although he does go on command. He just goes wherever he wants to on command. I don't want a pee spot. lol