For the express relief of all dogs and people involved, my wife purchased this low-tech, but life-saving product called Fresh Patch. It is a small, rectangular, cut-out piece of grass, set in a shallow plastic tray, for our dogs to relieve themselves on.
It is a major convenience for dogs and for dog owners who don’t have a ground-level backyard or don’t have quick and immediate access to one. We place our Fresh Patch on our back deck, which is one floor above a very small outdoor patio. We receive a new Fresh Patch each month, conveniently shipped to our front door. My wife pays the monthly expense. I’m in charge of its maintenance, disposal, and rolling out its successor.
It is an additional expense we pay for our dogs, but it is completely worth it. It is a life-saver when your dog desperately needs to go at 2:00 a.m., or 5:00 a.m., or both. No more need to run out front, to the sidewalk, street, or nearest allowable tree.
The patch saves my wife from having to make such a trip by herself, late in the evening. It also saves us both the indignity and shame of having to present bed hair and bed face to the early-rising public at 6:30 a.m.
Fresh Patch, in its beautiful, fresh, verdant state
When a new patch is unfurled at the beginning of the month, it is pristine and unsoiled, it is indeed a fresh patch. As the month progresses, the patch gradually becomes less fresh and more ripe.
Our dogs are small dogs, but there are two of them. Each urinating frequently–a minimum of once a day–on the turf. Accumulated over the course of a month. At the end of the month, depending on excretory patterns and weather conditions, it becomes, to varying degrees, a gross, sour, putrid patch. (That’s by design–that’s what it’s for. No complaint or disparagement against the product or the company.)
The patch requires very little oversight or maintenance, as it is just a flat, stationary, pee-soaked piece of grass. The biggest wildcard is rain. The patch needs to be covered effectively with a tarp when it rains, as I found out the hard way.
One particular month in the spring of 2023, we happened to experience a higher-than-normal amount of rainfall for our area. On more than one occasion, I either completely forgot to cover the patch or I covered it inadequately. Looking at it, I could see that it had turned into a waterlogged piece of sod, sitting in the plastic tray, in a shallow pool of stagnant rainwater. I was dreading the day the new turf arrived and that drenched thing had to be handled. But of course, inevitably, that day did arrive.
As I initially approached the patch, I could smell right away that the pool of rainwater had not only reawakened and released the glorious natural scent of the dog urine, but was chemically reacting with it.
During the actual handling, the turf was soggy and heavy, which made for an unwieldy one-person job. However, the most challenging and treacherous part of the task involved the scent. All of that dried, stale dog piss, which had been absorbed over the course of the month, was now renewed. And fermenting. Without the use of some type of mask, the strong, sour scent was inescapable.
While wrangling the heavy, wet, disgusting biohazard, I made an explicit effort to only breathe through my mouth. And yet, multiple times, I had to step back, take a break, exhale the fumes, and loudly gasp, “Ohhhhhhh!” I’m actually glad, kind reader, that the words on this screen can’t accurately capture the full majesty of that scent.
And while carrying out this task, to add insult to olfactory offense, I could hear my wife providing her moral support and gratitude by laughing audibly at my plight from inside the house.
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