I'm not personally familiar with the coonhound breed and haven't had a lot of experience with scenthound types - other than the beagle that bit my little dog and has attacked most of the dogs and few of the people in the neighbourhood! I'd guess though, given his age, and the age of the Lab, elderly dog issues are more relevant than breed-specific issues at this point. Your concern re ability to pick up poo completely leads me to wonder if one or more of the dogs have too soft poos? Are the older two dogs on senior diet food? It's a heck of a lot easier to clean up well if the dogs are on good quality age-appropriate food so the poo is firm! If, as is usually the case, the dogs have a particular area of the yard that they have decided is their bathroom spot, that makes it a bit easier to keep the children's play stuff in a different area. Keep all area's cleaned up daily if possible though or the dogs may decide to move their bathroom around! Is the dirty spot you refer to a bathroom area or dirty for some other reason? The introduction of the young dog undoubtedly has been raising pack heirarchy/dominance issues. The mini pin peeing over the other dogs scent is clearly saying he is aiming for top dog status :- ) Is the Lab perhaps rolling in scent marking of the mini pin? The concrete near the door for paw drying etc. is a good idea - make it big enough for all three to mill about and walk off some of the dirt. If it's too small they will wander off and get dirty again. A hose bib there is a good idea too for hosing down the concrete - or the dogs if they are really dirty! I'd vote for grass too. If it's sod you're laying, it won't be as messy to establish as seeding for grass. If the concrete is coming along shortly, a temporary increase in damp feet to dry off shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Don't let them in the house all at once - let one in, grab its collar as it comes through the door, wipe the feet, let it go and process the next one.... I don't like gravel at all - too much of a hassle getting into the grass and garden etc. Our backyard is a mix of grass and bark mulch paths. With healthy dogs on a good diet producing solid poos, there's little left behind on clean-up and not much mulch picked up with it (we use a decicated garden trowel as the pick up tool; it is hosed off after use...) Poo goes out in the regular garbage here too - the 'gray bins' have not been added to the blue and green ones here yet. A tightly sealed garbage container is necessary because regular garbage pick up is every two weeks here. I use one of those Diaper Genie things - make sure you use the thicker toddler strength bags! - it is a handy thing to use to help reduce the potential for odor problems. I'm sure many people reading all this are a bit grossed-out! :-)

Oh my so many messages in the past few days that I have not checked back! Thanks for all the kind words and I'll try to respond to the questions in order (since I can be quite the tangential typer)... BUT First I'd like to clear up the misunderstanding that this is a roof top garden... This "block" of homes in NYC happens to have a public driveway where kids play, inhabitants do a weird sort of k-turnish parking to put their cards into their private 1 car garages... and the sanitation department picks up our garbage! Below is a photo stitched image taken from the 2nd floor bedroom in the "back" of the house: From the bottom of the pic to the top is: 1. home which you can not see that I am taking the pic from 2. MY backyard or "courtyard" 3. 1 car garage ------4. mirrored on the other side of the alleyway 3. neighbors 1 car garage 2. neighbors backyard or "courtyard" 1. Neighbors home which you CAN see b/c I am facing it :) Ohh and the trees that are in the front of their homes so I don't confuse anyone and make them think the trees are growing off of the top of their homes! I took a few pics to demonstrate the length of the "block" shared with about 60 homes total but the stitching became a little crazy looking due to all the extreme angles I had to take to show it all... I really wanted to show you all just to demonstrate how terrible and sterile cities can be... Even though the part of NYC that I live in is not full of sky scrapers (although I can see them from the park and my roof) it is indeed a concrete jungle with rooftops covered with asphalt and all sorts of tarred up with everyone's yard completely covered with concrete... My neighbor refers to my backyard as a little oasis on a good day, and a jungle when she is in a joking mood! Now to the questions: Caroleena: If your bag is made of a synthetic material, it will most likely last for more than 1 season... The reason it is recycled is probably b/c it would sit in a landfill for much longer than our lifespan... Unless it is made of paper and the company you had purchased it from is trying to prevent another tree from being cut down to make a paper bag. If it is indeed made of paper, it might not hold up for a few days ;) There are synthetic materials that are coated for added UV protection since the sun's rays pack quite a wallop of energy even for some synthetic materials! I was actually looking for some larger sacks to use on the roof top of the garage... Something larger than just a little rice sack and I came across this sort of product.. You can buy various sized and types of bags from $10+ and they can be quite huge! I had the idea of planting some Highbush blueberries on the roof each getting it's own sack.. I think the large size would mean I wouldn't have to worry too much about watering them... Of course I am not sure since I'd need to take into consideration a good deal of variables such as the max weight of the full size bush + the max weight of all the soil in the bag when it is fully saturated during a heavy rainstorm. I'd also need to know the max loading of the huge beams under the roof... The porosity of the bag and if I'd have to make holes for drainage and how would that affect the stability of the bag are also some considerations... I could always just go small and try and make a small basic green roof but that isn't too much fun for me ;) http://www.bagcorp.com/p_combobags.php Anyways it's just an idea... dulcimerduo: The bottom of the pond is poured concrete with a slight slope towards the middle... If I could rebuild the pond I would change a bunch of stuff but for what it's worth, it is fine. The sides of the pond are cobble stone like blocks. They were picked up from (either Home Depot or some local place for contractors) I believe they are made of granite. I am not sure of how porous the rocks are but just to be safe, the entire inside of the pond is lined with a thin layer of Hydraulic Cement. I was a little bothered by having to cover the natural look of the stones inside the pond but in 1 year it winds up being covered entirely by a sort of string algae and having to scrub/remove the algea every year for the sake of seeing the stones imho defeats the calming environment that the pond provides! The glass block is naturally waterproof so only the cement used in between the blocks and around them are coated with Hydraulic Cement. If you plan on doing a very large concrete raised pond you might enjoy the instructable that someone had made detailing their pond that they built out of concrete using rebar and wood as a form for the curving walls... http://www.instructables.com/id/The_Ultimate_Koi_Pond/ You will need to make a username/password for the free website since they recently made some changes which require you to login in order to see the plethora of detailed pics that people include in each step of their process. concretenprimroses: Heh... goldfish... they really are such dirty fish but in return they are somewhat easier to take care of! I had on numerous occasions read that they lack a normal digestive system like many other fish so they eat more frequently and will overeat if you overfeed them and in return provide you with lots of fast fish waste. I've also read that b/c of this lack of a stomach you have to feed them a winter diet to avoid food from sitting in their digestive system and rotting since they are cold blooded and their digestive system slows with the lower water temperatures. Here is an article on the digestive system of carp (goldfish were domesticated from a type of carp). http://www.pond-doctor.co.uk/longdigestion.html Also, goldfish are carnivorous and even after over feeding my goldfish they will start plucking at the bottom looking for any food... This stirs up any solids that would otherwise settle to the bottom and clouds the water. FYI: I had planned on using my goldfish as a means of creating an organic fertilizer for my outdoor annuals and perennials so I overfeed my fish and in return I use the water from the pond to water the plants. I then fill up the water in the pond with clean tap water which has usually been standing outside in a container for at least a full day so that the chlorine can evaporate out of it since it is treated Tap water. I try not to let the water sit outside for too long so that mosquitoes start laying eggs in it! Once your goldfish (females) reach around 3 years of age they become sexually mature and start to spawn... The males will chase the females around all day long and bump into them... Since a large number of my fish are now over 3 years of age I find a few of them racing around the small pond which kicks up a lot of debris so the water is constantly cloudy! Since my pond is so small it does require a bit of work to take care of with so many fish in it! I am trying to keep it as both an aquaponic setup and a means for making an organic fish poo tea fertilizer for the plants in the soil. The bio filter that I grew over the waterfall to convert ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate and the waterfall that helps evaporate the nitrogen into the atmosphere just doesn't cut it. I only have pumps in my pond since I don't have any room to put anything more than a pump so I have to make due with what I have for trying to keep the water clean. At first when the weather warms up, string algae and sheets of it will grow everywhere... even over the moss and leaves of any plants that the water happens to flow over... The string algae is a nitrate processing machine even though it is a bit gross to look at since it looks all slimy and dark! Even though it is gross it keeps the water clear unless the fish disturb the waste on the bottom when they forage looking for food. The string algae was recently scrubbed off to increase the aesthetic looks of the pond b/c I had guests coming over and in return the water is now a slight hue of green due to the increase of suspended algae that are consuming the nitrates that the string algae on the rocks once took care of. Feel free to ask more specific questions about what I did If I just confused you with this wall of text! luna_llena_feliz: The shelf connected to the garage is made of a bunch of 1. 1" diameter pvc pipes connected with "L" shaped connecters to form a base that adds support... It's like a giant rectangle that a slightly larger rectangular piece of lattice sits on top of! 2. Lattice overlaid onto the pvc base and secured with UV coated tie wraps 3. The pvc base + lattice are on top of multiple heavy duty hanging pot hangers that are anchored into the garage using concrete anchors. The garage walls are cinderblocks covered with stone and brick and painted over using a waterproof cement made by Drylock. Again thanks for all the praise and kind words! Mike p.s. I think I now have to figure out how to support a large glass bowl or jar so I can do what calamity_J did!!! here is a link to her pic http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL167/1640891/18561881/318338361.jpg Oh... ONE LAST PIC!!! (for this response! mwahaha) Here is what my yard looks like at night... I have rope LED lights all around the garden... The pic was taken with the shutter open for 2 seconds so some of the lights look intense but in actuality all the lights set a really somber and romantic mood with just enough light to be able to see eachother's faces and "drinks" on the table! At the moment the pond lights are currently hanging out of the pond. One of the lights had gotten condensation in it the plan is to eventually replace the halogen bulbs with LED bulbs... I just need to either find light fixtures prebuilt so that the LEDs use the same transformer or buy a new one :(

Ditto on the big mudroom. Some place for sports equipment (balls, shoes, helmets, pads...) I only have two kids but they're multi-sport, especially DS, so we have shoes for multiple sports, plus baseball bats, football pads and helmet (which get stinky) and myriad other stuff that ends up by the backdoor (in the mudroom.) (DS is 14 but already 6'4" so storing all those shoes is no small thing, pun intended.) Extra space in the garage for joggers and strollers when they're little, and for bikes and maybe golf clubs when they're bigger. Also a handy storage space (basement or garage) for holiday decorations. Seems like a small thing but at least in my neighborhood everyone has Christmas/ winter holiday lights; lots of Halloween decorations (kids love those); stuff for Easter, etc. (And room for yard work stuff like a lawn mower, hose reels, shovels, etc.) If you don't have one yet, you may end up with a pet so space for bowls, food, etc. (probably in the mudroom) will help. Ditto the idea of a powder room near the backdoor / family entrance. You don't want kids tromping through your house to use the restroom, and if you're like me you DO want to have lots of kids at your house so you know what they're up to. (I have teens.) If you like to have people over, it's nice to have easy access from the kitchen to the outside for grilling, outdoor happy hours, etc. Homework space is interesting, at least in my house. We have a 'home work room' with a printer and a desk for each kid. But DD prefers to do her homework at the kitchen counter which makes me a bit nuts because I'm constantly clearing away papers. She's in high school and they have a TON of books and papers. We have a finished basement, which is great for when one of the kids wants to hang out with friends or when they were younger and had sleep overs. It's also where I store craft stuff which we don't use so much anymore but did a ton when they were little. Somewhere on this board was a thread of 'what would you do differently' that might help with ideas. And for whatever it's worth... we use our warming drawer in the kitchen all the time. As the kids get older their schedules can be all over the place, especially if they're in sports. We try to always have a family dinner, but sometimes end up with DS's plate in the warming drawer if he has a long/late practice. We also use if for pizza nights, happy hours, holiday dinners, etc., so I don't consider it an 'extra' - I use mine often.

Roselvr, I'm scratching my head on this one. IVF these days is quite unlikely to produce high order multiples, meaning 3 or more. Many Reproductive Endocrinologists refuse to put back more than 3, and usually only in a case where they are not of high quality. I recently visited a clinic that only puts back one, and my clinic would only do two. Your friend sounds like many people I know who have never had fertility issues. Perhaps she did IVF for her 4, but I hardly think that it's a trend sweeping the nation - it's expensive, it's invasive, and it is (or often is) highly emotionally charged, even if the outcome is successful. Sorry for the OT rant. Mary Sorry, rereading my post, I guess I got side tracked looking at house pictures and never finished my thoughts or spaced it out.. My neighbor did not do IVF.. She had one right after the other. A playroom like this would have been great for her and the little ones. I was also thinking about someone that had multiples.. I'm glad to hear that places are not putting more then a few back. I watch the shows on TLC, Jon & Kate, the one with the 4 identical 5 year old girls, the lady from PA that had the little boy Sammy then had multiples and the most recent one I saw where they had 5. I could not imagine having that many little kids running around. Anyway.. back to the topic. I love the playroom. While I was at the agents site I saw they also have a recreation room, looks like it is in a walk out basement.