Would mulch help prevent tracking in mud?

[oxfordowners]

Hi all,

We have a large tree in the back of the garden whose shade prevents grass from growing underneath it. At the moment it is bare dirt (and mud when it rains). Our 8 month old cocker spends a lot of time around this tree - madly running in circles around the tree, or jumping around barking to "protect the territory" - which means he gets a lot of mud on his paws (I think more than he would on grass for example). So we wipe his paws off with towels and the kitchen floor is tile, so it's not a huge deal, but it is a little annoying. I was thinking about putting down some mulch around the tree, since nothing can grow there anyway (especially not with the mad running around in circles...). Does anyone have experience with cockers and mulch? Will this gambit fail because he will just try digging through it? Will he get splinters? (I did a search on this site so I know cocoa mulch is toxic while wood chip mulch is probably fine.) Any stories or suggestions would be most welcome!

[vikki.k]

We have a similar problem in the winter months with the top part of our garden turning into a bog! We simply put up our puppy fences and just fence off that part of the garden until it warms up and the rain stops and then they can have the full garden back again.

Is that a possibility?

[oxfordowners]

I'm not sure it's a seasonal thing (granted, we haven't had him a full year yet, obviously...) - even if it's not rainy, his paws get wet enough from the morning dew on the grass to pick up the dirt, which he then tracks in. I'm not sure if moving a puppy fence back and forth every day is easier than just wiping off his paws. Or I guess we could just put up a fence permanently, but that just seems kind of sad.

[elaine.e]

We have a woodchip path running through the bottom of the garden and I use bark mulch in the flower beds and round the shrubs. William (6 years old) occasionally comes in with a few bits of it stuck to his feathering, but Louis (just 1 year old) has only just about grown out of rolling in it, laying in it, eating it and removing bits of it from the path and beds to the lawn just because he can

So it might be a good idea once the novelty of it has worn off for your puppy, but that could take a while if he's as boisterous as Louis

What kind of tree is it? I ask because a neighbour's Oak trees overhang the bottom of our garden and I had to put up temporary fencing last autumn because puppy Louis developed a taste for acorns, which are poisonous if consumed in large numbers. I had to do the same when William was a puppy but he wasn't interested in acorns by his second winter.

[oxfordowners]

It's a chestnut tree. I sure hope chestnuts aren't poisonous, because he has been known to nibble on a few (but we only got him in January, where there were only very few left on the ground - I wonder what he'll think come autumn). The really annoying thing about the tree is that when it rains, it drops all these sticky leaf things on the ground, which then get stuck all over his paws, and he mouths like crazy when you try to take them off.

[lindseyp]

Yes, if it's a horse chestnut, oxfordowners ....thought this may be useful for you 

http://www.vetbuzz.com/story.asp?id=308

We have mulch on the flower beds here (more for keeping weeds at bay than for the dogs,) but have shingle on parts of the garden that got muddy during the winter months.....works a treat