Poop-maggedon (sorry, not for the easily grossed out)

The day has arrived.  Not armageddon, but dog-poop-mageddon.  
4 ft.  of snow on the ground and single digit temperatures/temps in the teens for several weeks made
efficient clean up impossible.  Now the thaw, and I'm have to deal with the poop leftovers released by
melting snow and ice.  Does anyone have any tricks up their sleeve for removing wet, soggy pet waste?
I'm not the squeamish type, but holy cow, there's gotta be a better way.  

ah i don't miss this part of living in snow country....
what kind of surface is it? hoping for something hard (concrete) that you can shovel and then hose? (ideally, sprinkle some sawdust over and then shovel....) gravel? (ugh)

I wish I had a better way, but impervious gloves and a shovel have been my go-to. It's gross, it's messy, but it generally is a one and done event.

Ideally, there would be a warm stint so the ground/manure can dry up a little bit.

I would use a garden spade or shovel.  Place content in approved bag.

I get 250 l plastic barrels, with snap ring lids, and drill holes in the bottom.
I put them in a shady place where nutrient leachate will be helpful or at least not disruptive.
I put a mess of chopped brush in the bottom.
Then I slowly make a digusting layer cake of poop, woodash and worms, with daily shoveling.

Ice builds up in winter, wading through snowbanks builds character ;)
Once full I use window screen and the snap ring to cover.
Wait 0.5-1 y and I have a mass of odourless worm casings for shrubs etc,
along with seething masses of worms.
The barrels can be rolled to destination.
Passing through worms greatly lowers pathogens.
This all requires some room to work.

Douglas Campbell wrote:Then I slowly make a digusting layer cake of poop, woodash and worms, with daily shoveling.

I don't know if "digusting" is a typo or intentional, but I love it -- a portmanteau of digesting and disgusting!

I use one of these on non-gravel areas (source: Amazon):

Tereza Okava wrote:ah i don't miss this part of living in snow country....
what kind of surface is it? hoping for something hard (concrete) that you can shovel and then hose? (ideally, sprinkle some sawdust over and then shovel....) gravel? (ugh)

Literally laughing out loud right now because its a lot of MUD!  
I'm going out and scooping periodically; thinking of trying some kitty litter.

Douglas Campbell wrote:I get 250 l plastic barrels, with snap ring lids, and drill holes in the bottom.
I put them in a shady place where nutrient leachate will be helpful or at least not disruptive.
I put a mess of chopped brush in the bottom.
Then I slowly make a digusting layer cake of poop, woodash and worms, with daily shoveling.

Ice builds up in winter, wading through snowbanks builds character
Once full I use window screen and the snap ring to cover.
Wait 0.5-1 y and I have a mass of odourless worm casings for shrubs etc,
along with seething masses of worms.
The barrels can be rolled to destination.
Passing through worms greatly lowers pathogens.
This all requires some room to work.

Thanks for the reply!  
And thanks for the info.  I was always under the impression that dog poop couldn't be used, but everything you wrote makes sense, so will definitely look into it.
Yes, I love wading through the snow drifts, especially with my pup. I did wade through
the drifts both in the yard and on trails (nobody else was on the trails with the snow, it was great),  I was
somewhat limited this year; I'm getting a new left knee before the end of August, so it
would be party-in-the-snow one day followed by two of severe limping.  
Whatever.  Grateful I can get a new knee and boy, did I have fun getting to this point!

Anne Miller wrote:I would use a garden spade or shovel.  Place content in approved bag.

Oh, the bag story I can tell...the poop that I was able to get up in a timely fashion went into a bag inside a metal trash can.;  of course, some snow/ice went in with it.  Warm-up was rapid and started at night, by midday the can held poop soup.
Under normal conditions, any poop that doesn't happen in the woods is taken care of daily.  We just got spanked with one storm after another, and with my about-to-retire left knee, I fell behind and a lot got frozen in.

Timothy Norton wrote:I wish I had a better way, but impervious gloves and a shovel have been my go-to. It's gross, it's messy, but it generally is a one and done event.

Ideally, there would be a warm stint so the ground/manure can dry up a little bit.

Yes there is no dainty way to do this.  I think drying is what I was looking for.  Kitty litter is not cutting it,
it's still too wet out.   Scooping the poop is the job of the day, and since only this moment is guaranteed I will be joyful about it!

oh nooooo! and hiding under the covers until, say, May isn't an option huh.

Hopefully you can dig up an old face mask and a container of vapor-rub and occupy yourself thinking about anything that's not pasty, squishy, squicky or even worse. Think about ducklings, maybe. I Love Lucy. All the kinds of mushrooms you know. Maybe all together.

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Douglas Campbell wrote:Then I slowly make a digusting layer cake of poop, woodash and worms, with daily shoveling.

I don't know if "digusting" is a typo or intentional, but I love it -- a portmanteau of digesting and disgusting!

From the French 'Dégustation', a tasty treat from the point of view of the worms :)

If there is a lot of mud then find an out of the way spot to make a new compost pile for flowers.

Tereza Okava wrote:oh nooooo! and hiding under the covers until, say, May isn't an option huh.

Hopefully you can dig up an old face mask and a container of vapor-rub and occupy yourself thinking about anything that's not pasty, squishy, squicky or even worse. Think about ducklings, maybe. I Love Lucy. All the kinds of mushrooms you know. Maybe all together.

I Love Lucy...great idea!
I just mouth breathe, unless it has the chance to spray (like washing down the area with a garden hose. Then a
mask is a must-have.
An odd former quirk of mine was being able to deal with human blood and body fluids (even when covered with them) without blinking, but not animal stuff.  I recently retired from nursing after 34 awesome & insane years and human excrement, blood and various body fluids was just part of life, like brushing one's teeth.  Yet dog poop used to freak me out.  I used to alternate between cursing and screaming like a little girl when I encountered it. Then I got my
German Shepherd, and now there is no more whimpering.  Complaining, yes, as evidenced by me starting this thread,
but no more freaking out.  Ain't nobody got time for that!  Poop happens!

Anne Miller wrote:If there is a lot of mud then find an out of the way spot to make a new compost pile for flowers.

Do you mean mixing the mud and poop?
Okay, Anne and all of you who participated in this thread:
the people on permies.com are AWESOME!
Thank you all, for real.

One thought is to cover them with enough sawdust that they disappear into the mulch. Perhaps also stomp them in with the sawdust and some big dirty muck boots?

Chickens & ducks will... ehhh... take care of it too, if you're patient. As well a pressure washer...

Susan Mené wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:If there is a lot of mud then find an out of the way spot to make a new compost pile for flowers.

Do you mean mixing the mud and poop?
Okay, Anne and all of you who participated in this thread:
the people on permies.com are AWESOME!
Thank you all, for real.

I am lazy, so I would just scoop up the mud (and poop) and pile it in an out of the way spot and forget about it ... until  I remember to throw some flower seeds on it.

Carla Burke wrote:I use one of these on non-gravel areas (source: Amazon):

This was so crucial! My new one is extra-large and extra-strong

I saw this thread wake up and thought OH NO NOT POOPMAGEDDON AGAIN!!
How bad was the damage? Did you come up with some awesome solution (chip drop over your entire yard??)

I had a poopmageddon situation of my own yesterday, when Dirtbag Dog woke me up by jumping on my bed with (gasp) poopfoot. Which of course was followed by slow realizations like "what is that smell" and the horror that It Was Coming From The Sheet and then much shrieking, ripping off of bedclothes and an early morning forced footbath for Mr Poopfoot.

I have three tools, but they are hardly magic:

1)  flat bladed shovel

2)  hoe

3) 5-gallon bucket


I have gone out and either worked the doggie-doo with the shovel or used the hoe to scrape it on to the shovel.  I then dump it into the bucket and carry it away.


Its still fairly disgusting, but such are the fun experiences of having a dog--I miss having a dog.



Eric

Tereza Okava wrote:I saw this thread wake up and thought OH NO NOT POOPMAGEDDON AGAIN!!
How bad was the damage? Did you come up with some awesome solution (chip drop over your entire yard??)

I had a poopmageddon situation of my own yesterday, when Dirtbag Dog woke me up by jumping on my bed with (gasp) poopfoot. Which of course was followed by slow realizations like "what is that smell" and the horror that It Was Coming From The Sheet and then much shrieking, ripping off of bedclothes and an early morning forced footbath for Mr Poopfoot.

    Oh, NOOOOOO! What a wake-up call!  The stench!
   The clean-up is long completed, done with my handy scooper, poop by poop.  We were solid 4 feet of snow for several months with weather in the single digits to mid-twenties (fahrenheit), and it filled a 13 gallon trash bag 3/4.
 My dog is a 3 a.m. pooper for som inexplicable reason and her poops would be cemented into the snow cover by morning.  In retrospect, I should have gotten my sleepy butt outside and scooped right away,  there's no bears or dangerous wildlife around here, so no excuses!

Eric Hanson wrote:I have three tools, but they are hardly magic:

1)  flat bladed shovel

2)  hoe

3) 5-gallon bucket


I have gone out and either worked the doggie-doo with the shovel or used the hoe to scrape it on to the shovel.  I then dump it into the bucket and carry it away.


Its still fairly disgusting, but such are the fun experiences of having a dog--I miss having a dog.



Eric

The flat shovel and rake is excellent.  I'll bet if I had used a heavy metal garden rake, I could have hacked it
out of the snow/ice before the snow melted.

Dachshunds are small so they have small poop compared to some others.

I have the pooper scooper like Carla posted.  I have never used it.

I prefer the small one like a garden spade.  The one I had degraded due to sun damage so I now have a pooper scooper from the cat liter box since she gave it up.

Ughh I'm dealing with this now. The little buggers concentrated on the driveway since it had the lowest depth of snow this year. So of course, I encounter the landmines as I get out of the vehicles.

Robert Ray wrote:Ughh I'm dealing with this now. The little buggers concentrated on the driveway since it had the lowest depth of snow this year. So of course, I encounter the landmines as I get out of the vehicles.

My sympathies.  I have become an expert at removing dog poop from the soles of my shoes with minimal gross-out factor.  I'll post my technique after I take my Axe (AKA Mrs. Poopy-butt) for a romp.