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Okay, I am getting ready to buy my first home, finally, and I'm considering a Shelter dog adoption. Have a question about setting boundries in the back yard. The house has a 6 foot privacy fence aroud the yard, so i know I can set an area for potties.... what do you do with the poop in the yard? Do you pick it up, or bury it in the yard? I'm not sure I want poop in the trash can.... it's going to have the cat box when it's changed...
I have a separate, kitchen sized metal garbage can with the step-on mechanism to open it, for dog poop and kitty litter. It keeps the smell in pretty well. Burying it wouldn't be a good solution for long. They sell "doggy dooleys" that you dig a hole for in the ground that's supposed to break down the poop. The only person I know who had one said it worked well for awhile but then...I forget what problem came up but he wasn't doing it any more.
We pick it up weekly with a scooper, put it in a trashbag and into the trash can. I have seen in the ground dog waste "composters", but haven't used one. There are services that will come by weekly and pick it up for you also.
Congrats on buying your first house and getting a shelter dog.
I pick up daily or every two days at least. I line a five gallon bucket with a kitchen bag, put the poo in it and twist it up and cover until I add more. When it gets closer to full and trash day, I take it out, it tie it up and put it in the trash to be picked up.
I keep the five gallon bucket and the pick up tools at the back of the yard away from the house. Keeping it twisted up and covered keeps the flies to a minimum. (A health hazard.)
If you would like, you could always use the little bags that are used for walks, tying them up after use to keep the flies at a minimum but the that's kind of over kill. However, it does keep the odor down...which is the idea.
Do what works best for your situation, I have two large dogs. My system works well for them and to keep the yard clean and poo clear...it also keeps the neighbors from complaining! however, I do it for my dogs, not my neighbors!
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
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I pick it up as soon as Artie finishes making it. He doesn't like when his yard is dirty.
I put his little poop bags -- a box of 50 of them for a $1 at the dollar store -- in a separate large trash bag, outside the fence. On trash day, that trash bag goes in with the other trash at the curb.
I'm a painting contractor and have lots of five-gallon buckets on hand. I also have four dogs. So, that's a lot of poop! Weather permitting (in Michigan winter it can be challenging) I pick up every day.
Bucket goes in a corner of the yard, with lid. Away from the house, especially in summer, so it doesn't attract flies. I use grocery sacks to pick up poo, into the bucket it goes and then out to the trash weekly. Also I try walking the dogs every day, or almost every day, or taking them places....always have plastic bags in the vehicles, in coat pockets, etc, for poop pick-up.
Years and years ago I had a Doggie Dooley, at a house I rented. Used it for maybe two years? It was great, really worked as long as I put the little enzyme packets in. But when I bought a house and moved I never got around to getting a new one.
As an aside - I feed raw which means mostly very small (even from the Rottweiler), fairly odor-free, firm poops.
My dog doesn't poop in the yard. We walk daily around our neighborhood 3x a day, and that's when he poops...he's on a schedule. I pick it up with either recycled plastic grocery bags I've saved, or little poop bags, tie them off, and put them in the city trash containers. My dog doesn't get to run loose in the yard, because he figured out how to get over the fence long ago...so we don't have the option of letting him out to poop. Walks are a necessity. Does keep the yard clean, though.
home made doggy septic system.
pros: easy
cons: in the winter if the ground freezes it tends to "sit" (no odor, but come spring it tends to take a little longer to break down)
how:
rubbermaid trash can, a shovel a drill with a large drill bit and a couple bags of rough gravel.
dig a hole wherever you want your doggy septic. it should be about 2ft deeper than the trash can, and about twice as wide.
take your trash can and drill holes in the bottom and sides to about 2/3rds the way up (ours are about 1-2" apart) they need to be fairly good sized holes for drainage
put gravel in the bottom of your hole, you want the gravel to be at least 24" deep, the idea being that once your trashcan goes inside the hole about 2" of the can sits above ground level (this is so you dont "loose" it when your mowing...we learnt this on the hard way LOL!)
sit the can inside the hole centered ontop of the gravel and them dump the rest of the gravel in around the trashcan (drainage around the outside) to about 2" below ground level, then backfill that last 2 " with dirt (this will let the grass grow right up to the lid making it rather inconspicuous.)
tada, doggy septic system
now in order to work properly it needs plenty of water, and good beneficial bacteria, you can use the enzymes made for human septic systems!
just toss in the waste and water once in a while
pop the lid on and no problems with flies or smell.
they work great most of the year but here in ct the ground freezes and when it gets cold, the doggy septic freezes too...we just keep adding poop and in the spring when it thaws it gets a real good watering and a pack of rid-ex
in warmer climated they work well year round.
another option ive seen people do is simply dig a pit, dump in the poop and an occasional hand full of leaves and put a board over it...when its almost full dig another about 2ft away using the dirt from the new hole to back fill the old one.
oh the way we did it in doggy daycare was we had an outside trashcan that was poop bags only. we always double bagged using plastic bags form the grocery store to keep smell down but i personally hate being that wastefull (and right now we pay for trash by the lb and dog poop from 6 dogs (all be it small) quickly adds up.)
dog poop composts down just like any other organic waste.
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Pick up...
however, I do it for my dogs, not my neighbors! 
