Dogs digging up arena?

[IhaveTooMany]

Considering building an indoor arena to ride in and for winter exercise for my daycare dogs.
My only worry would be dogs digging up the surface and completely ruining any membrane etc?
Anyone with experience is this likely to happen or are they generally not that destructive to the surface?

 

[Equi]

It depends on the dogs but I would assume they won’t be left unattended for long periods. I would be more worried about the fact they will urinate and deficate all over it and it will not be easily cleaned and after a while it will smell, possibly affecting the horses behaviour and becoming unsanitary for humans and dogs. I would also as a dog owner be concerned about the dogs eating the sand/fibre.

 

[webble]

I know of a couple of schools that have doubled up as dog exercise and the main issue has been urine and poo rather than digging, not very nice for horse riders

 

[eggs]

I have an indoor school (sand and rubber) but it does not have a membrane. If the gate is left open the dogs do go in and have a run around and seem to prefer to poo there than anywhere else. I try to remember to shut the gate but if I forget then I do go round and pick up all the poo.

One of my dogs did dig a very deep hole in it - turns out there were rabbits around and she was trying to dig them out. Normally though they do not dig the surface.

 

[planete]

I used an indoor school with a sand surface for my lurchers for a bit but I had to stop when one of the dogs got an eye infection from the sand kicked up by the other dogs as they were running.

 

[Jenko109]

Have never seen dogs dig the surface.

 

[Barklands]

As posted above, only issues I have encountered when using a friend's arena that they also hire out for dog exercise is that it is always COVERED in dog

 

[Pinkvboots]

I would also think digging is the least of your worries as most dogs love using them as toilets.

 

[Lois Lame]

I suppose if the dogs are doing a lot of running in the arena, their bowels are stimulated into releasing...

It's nice to think the dogs are so much enjoying the exercise, though.

 

[Spot the Merry Risk]

I do agility with my dog, at this time of year it’s always indoors on riding surfaces.

When training or competing poo is always swiftly picked up, dogs should always be exercised before going indoors but accidents happen. Wee seems to be rather more random, some places will spray the area straight away, some just scuff a foot over it, and some people let their dogs cock their legs anywhere - wooden kicking boards around the arenas for instance.