Health and Grooming

Where to Put Dog Poop in the Back Yard

where to put dog poop in the back yard
Where should we put dog poop in the back yard? Is burying or composting possible?

If you have a dog, you will undoubtedly have to deal with a lot of poop. This can often lead to questions on how you can deal with it. Luckily, we have a few tips on the best way to deal with your dog’s poop.

  • Is it safe to bury dog poop?
  • What is the most environmentally friendly way to deal with dog poop in the back yard?
  • Do some people compost dog poo?
  • How can we stop the yard from smelling?

Let’s jump in!

Why You Need to Clean Poop In Your Back Yard 

It is vital that you clean up dog poop from your backyard as quickly as you possibly can.

For starters, dogs poop a lot. Sometimes it can be a couple of times per day. If you have multiple dogs, then that poop is going to be building up incredibly quickly. If you leave it a couple of days to clean up, then the problem will become quite unmanageable. 

If you are trying to keep your back yard in pristine condition, then even a single piece of dog poop is going to be unsightly. Imagine a lot of it stacked up. Your garden is going to look absolutely repulsive.

Don’t even get us started on the smell. Dog poop smells foul. It is going to start smelling awful the second it leaves your dog. If you head into your back yard, you will have to deal with that foul stench. If it is in your back yard, then you may even stand in the poop. You probably don’t need us to tell you how awful it is to walk around with dog poop on your shoe. You also probably don’t need us to tell you just how difficult it will be to clean off.

Finally, dog poop is a breeding ground for bacteria. It is not as dangerous as cat poop, but the bacteria that breeds on poop will never be a good thing. Imagine having young children play about with the poop. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Children have become seriously sick from touching dog poop. Do you really want that to happen?

So, long story short, that dog poop will need to be cleaned up and, perhaps more importantly, it needs to be cleaned up properly. This means that we can now dive into a couple of ideas. We will tell you the pros and cons of them, then we will wrap up with a solution that we genuinely feel is the best option.

Where to Put Dog Poop in the Back Yard 1

Where to put dog poop in the back yard?

  • Bag it and bin it (plastic wastage)
  • Poop scoop and bin (can be stinky)
  • Bury it deep (dangerous if shallow)
  • Compost it (need special compost)
  • Scoop and flush in the toilet (most environmentally friendly)

Dog Poop Bags

We are not trying to scare you off of dog poop bags here. They have their place. If you go out in public with your dog, you should always have a few dog poop bags in tow. It is the best way to clean up your dog’s messes in public. Oh, and please make sure you clean up your dog’s mess in public!

Some people will use these dog poop bags at home. We suppose you can do that, but we feel a few problems with going down that route.

Firstly, dog poop bags tend to be made for just one poop. This means that you will need to have a whole stack of bags for all those stools that your dog will be passing. The cost of this is going to be relatively high. It can seem quite wasteful too.

Where to Put Dog Poop in the Back Yard 2

Some people are now going to say, “but, aren’t dog poop bags cheap?”. Yes. They can be cheap. However, you have to remember that the cheapest dog poop bags are just plastic. They are not biodegradable. If you care about the environment, we really should not be throwing away bags that are not biodegradable. Plastic is frustrating as you are going to be polluting the planet for thousands and thousands of years. In fact, at this point, you probably shouldn’t pick up the poop at all. It is better for the environment.

If you are going to go down the route of dog poop bags, make sure that you purchase biodegradable ones. It is still not an ideal solution, but it will be a little bit better for the environment.

We wouldn’t ever use dog poop bags with our dogs. This is because they smell when you toss them in the trash. Even when the dog poop has been cleaned out, that smell is going to linger. It isn’t pleasant at all. If you really want to avoid that smell (and still want to use bags), consider purchasing a smell-proof bin. You should then make sure that you store the bin in the shade. This way, you won’t have to deal with the gut-wrenching smell of warm poop. 

merle shih-poo puppy
A super cute multi-color Shih-Poo. Touch of Merle! Photo congerdesign/Pixabay

Poop Scoop

If you have a lot of poop to collect, you will probably want to go down the route of poop scoop and some larger bags.

This is the ideal option if you do not want to get up close and personal with the poop. Remember, with dog poop bags, you would typically just wrap the bag around the dog poop to pick it up. Many people are not fans of this. This is why you will often find so much poop left about. With a poop scoop, you don’t have to touch the poop at all, although we suggest that you wear a pair of gloves. It makes it a bit more sanitary.

Once you have collected all that poop in a large bag, you can throw it into your rubbish bin. Of course, this means that you will still be suffering from the same issues you had with your individual poop bags. The big one being that it is going to smell. In fact, it is going to smell even worse as you have now stacked a lot of poop on top of each other. This poop mountain is going to let out an unimaginable stench. Again, this means that you will need to keep the bin in the shade and opt for a smell-proof bin if you can.

While this is a good option for cleaning up a lot of poop, it is designed for many poops. If you are just picking up individual poops, then you have the same issue as poop bags. It is expensive and wasteful. You have just added an extra step to the process by using a poop scoop.

Bury the Poop

French bulldog puppy and mom
A proud French Bulldog Mom watches over her puppies!

If you really want something a bit complicated, then you could bury the poop.

If you do bury the poop, it should be at least 6-inches down. However, there are a couple of issues with this solution.

For starters, burying poop is a lot of work. We imagine that most people that would bury poop will be burying a lot at a time. This means that you will either need to keep digging the hole, or you will need to have poop hanging around for a while before you bury it. If you dig a hole each time your dog produces a new stool, you will forever be digging holes. It won’t be long before you run out of space. It really isn’t an ideal solution.

That is just the issue with effort on your part. There are even more issues beyond this.

If you bury poop, there is a chance that dogs and other animals will dig it up. They will be able to smell it after all. This means that you are going to be ‘enjoying’ decaying poop tossed all over your garden.

You also need to remember that burying poop is not going to kill the viruses and bacteria. That will remain. This means that the bacteria and viruses are going to get into the soil. If you have many plants, or you are growing food in your garden, then this is a huge issue. It will contaminate your food, and it will kill off your plants. We can’t imagine that you want either of them to happen.

Burying poop is not an excellent long-term option. It may be OK as a one-off if you can bury the poop out of the way’, but we suggest that you do not even consider this. You will eventually regret it.


Many people will consider the idea of composting their dog poop. Now, we are not going to lie here. This is something that could work, but it is not recommended.

If you have just a general compost heap in your garden, then composting is a huge no. The bacteria and the viruses will not die off in the poop. The poop will break down, but all of the bacteria and the viruses will remain. This means that when the time comes to spread the compost around your plants, you will be running into the same issues that you would have if you had buried the poop. Again, not a good idea.

The only people that should be composting their dog poop are those that have a managed composting solution. You will need to strictly manage the temperature to ensure that all bacteria and viruses have been killed off properly. Most of the people reading this page do not have a solution like that in place.

Flushing The Poop

maltipoo before haircut
Maltipoo BEFORE a haircut: look at how long the Maltipoo coat can get! Photo by T S Smith /CC BY

The best solution for cleaning away the dog poop is to flush it down the toilet. After all, your toilet has been made specifically for this job!

To flush the poop away, you are going to need to have some flushable paper. Any toilet paper should be fine here. We also recommend that you use a pair of gloves. It isn’t going to be sanitary to pick up the poop barehanded with nothing more than a bit of paper between you and the poop. Ideally, you would pick up the poop as soon as your dog ‘delivers’ it. 

The only people that really have issues with flushing away the poop will be those with large dogs or multiple dogs. There will just be too much excrement, and you will be running back and forth from the toilet. Probably, not how you want to be spending your days. in this situation, the poop scoop is probably the best way to go.


So, there you have it. Now you know the best way to clean up dog poop in your back yard. Now you have absolutely no excuse not to be keeping the place excellent and pristine.