Hello Shannon, I really think that you should hold off on making any plans on what to do with your sideyard just yet. There are several things that you need to consider that you have not provided info on here that will help fellow posters help you come up with a solution that is both workable and to your liking. You mention dogs. How many do you have and are you planning on containing them to a portion of the yard or will they have the full back yard to enjoy. No children? I take it your back door comes off of your kitchen area maybe through a washroom or some other utility room?? Do you have a diagram of the entire backyard. If not I recommend that you get some graph paper and using for example each square of the graph paper to represent one square foot draw out the entire lot on which you house sits and then plot in the house and any permanent features such as location of trees/shrubs/irrigation/etc. Then you will need to determine the nature of your yards. What kind of activity will you be planning for the front/the north side/the back/and the south side yards? OK. Then what kind of work does your husband do and do you work as well. Need a place to kick back and relax outside to mellow out after a hard day? Where are you planning on such an escape spot (inside or outside). Planning on any extensive use of the outside such as a sun deck? What kind of time do you have? Do you have lots of time and do you like to spend your time working in the yard, garden, outside? Or are inside activities more your cup of tea? Consider the above and whatever else you come across as you ponder my thoughts. Remember the basic need is TIME. How do you want to spend it and design the use of your property accordingly. I want you to check out this site that is the design and the result of a whole lot of hard work by a young Canadian couple. Click here It is in French but click on the links and you will be treated to an amazing accomplishment!

Momesqny, the exact same thing happened to me! Last month I rescued a tiny tomato plant from the side of the road where my greyhounds usually do their business. (They eat everything, including tomatoes, of course.) The plant has flourished and grown to about 4 ft, and is LOADED with hundreds of grape tomatoes. I can't wait to try them...thank you dogs...LOL! I would nourish your healthy plant and reap the benefits, especially during this year of scourges! Here is a link that might be useful: Doggie tomato

I found this thread by accident and am very happy that I'm not the only person in the world who doesn't like dog - or any droppings for that matter - in my yard. We live on a corner and it amazes me how people will allow their dogs to run 20 feet up into my yard on one of those 'wonderful' retractable leashes. To me that's trespassing, plain and simple. On more than one occasion I have flung open a window and shouted quite loudly 'CAN YOU KEEP YOUR DOG OFF MY GRASS PLEASE', and then slammed the window shut so they got the hint that not only didn't I appreciate it but let them know they could be seen. I mean, what is it about windows, they think you can't see out?? And I don't care if they pick it up, it's STILL there. If you doubt me, go step on the grass where someone has just 'picked it up' and then sniff your shoes. Nice, eh? It's still on the top of the grass and you're gonna track the smell everywhere you walk. My favorite is what happened recently - I walk a treadmill in the evenings after dinner when many people walk their dogs, and I can see out two windows, one on the side of the house and one in the front. One evening I see a couple come walking two big dogs, a couple I've seen before, not every day but off and on. Never really paid much attention to them, I just see them through the window when they go by. On this particular night I'm walking, and I see them coming back from the end of the street, and I saw a bag in her left hand and thought, Oh, well that's good, at least they're one of those walkers who picks up. And as I'm looking at them - and this all happened in a matter of seconds - she suddnely turns towards her husband (which meant she was turned away from my house so I'm just seeing her back), she kind of leans in towards her husband, like she's saying something to him, then straightens back up and continues walking. As they continued walking, I notice a bag at the edge of the neighbors grass across the street and immediately looked at her hand. No bag. So here you have someone who probably picks it up but then will simply drop the bag somewhere so they don't have to take it home. As hubby said, not only is that a really low thing to do, it's littering. So I got in my car and followed them to see where they lived - which was in a completely different neighborhood than ours so obviosuly they come to OURS to do this - and then after dark I retrieved the bag and 'returned' it to them by tossing it up onto their driveway. I was really hoping it would still be dark when they left for work in the morning and they would drive right through it. At any rate, no one has seen them since, which I would hope is because they're too embarrassed to be seen on our street knowing they were caught doing something so unkind, and also because they now know WE know where they live. And like my husband says, we're pretty sure this probably isn't the first time they've done this, they just never got caught before.

Glad this is taking a better turn. I refrained from comment intially because I am both an adopter and a volunteer with rescue groups. Yep, we all have serious jobs and lives and fit this fostering and home visiting stuff into our evenings and week-ends. I don't think three weeks is excessive considering that in that time the application was reviewed, your references were likely checked, a home visit appt was scheduled and completed, and the application was approved. Two weeks would be ideal given that most of the visits happen on week-ends, but during busy times when volunteers are on vacation, three weeks doesn't sound like 'forever.' "It seems that in their eagerness to remind me that rescue dogs come with ''baggage'' and that I may want to adopt from a breeder if I'm concerned about health issues, they are less concerned about finding good homes for the dogs than their own agenda." I suspect that their 'agenda' is a permanent placement for the dog. Although you say that you would work with any dog with problems, your requests do raise red flags that would trigger any responsible volunteer to have the 'dogs change, dogs have issues' discussion with you or any applicant. It isn't 'personal'. What you probably ran into were experienced volunteers testing a bit (given your requests) to make sure that the dog wouldn't bounce again. Obviously, they found you sincere and a good potential home, so please forgive them for treating you like any other applicant. Many applicants are not experienced and many really do have unrealistic expectations that no dog can meet and see nothing wrong with returning animals if they don't magically and perfectly fit into the household. What strikes me oddly here is that they don't have photos of the dogs on a website. Maybe you could 'give back' (whether you do or do not adopt the pup you're interested in) by volunteering with the group and taking photos of the dogs for display on the groups website. By doing that you'd be helping many other dogs and many other applicants. Good luck, and do deep us posted.