Gurgling lawn and poop referee

When we moved to our house (3 years ago this August) we discovered with the first rain and from a neighbor that we have a "natural spring" in our back yard. Now I'm not exactly sure what this means except that whenever we have lots of rain like yesterday most of the yard floods. You don't need galoshes or anything when you traipse out, but you do hear a very distinct sucking when you lift your foot. If you stand really still you can hear the gurgle. Is this a major case of lawn indigestion? Will we one day come home to see a "lawn-ness creature" or worse the house sliding into the street? Your guess is as good as mine. But warmer days can't come fast enough to dry it out, I have a puppy who needs to play outside. We usually have a great time playing outside together, but because of the water-logged yard and other factors today was not so great.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Haydee came out of the dining room with a "toy" she was so excited about, we knew it probably wasn't really a toy. She'd pick it up and fling it in the air and pick it up again. It was so cute until we realized it was a piece of cat poop! As we realized what had happened it was like the scene from Ace Ventura-short of attaching the plunger to our faces and other hilarious antics.

Never the less we went back to scene of the crime. Some of you may be wondering what kind of pet parents we are if our puppy has free access to cat poop. Let me assure you that we have a covered litter box even with a flapper door, but having two cats use the same box every day, it can get rather fragrant in there. We had removed the flapper door to air it out a little, so the cats would not hyperventilate- believe me they've come close. We hurriedly reattached it and hoped to high heaven that was the first turd that had made a break for it.

In the meantime we changed cat litter to something more "green" some pine pellets that break up on contact, which makes all cat waste flushable or compostible. Hooray! Seeing as we don't have a compost pile (yet) and that there were some remnants of the clay cat litter it was not flushable either. One of us (perhaps the one who is not writing) decided we should put the used cat litter in the back yard by the shed. Ahem did I mention there was still cat poo in it?

I'm sure you can picture it now, Haydee found the treasured treats within minutes and would grab one and run away. I used all my best PetSmart training tricks to no avail and guarded her like a tap dancer on speed. Mud flying, it was still no match for the tasty turd. She'd come back to the pile and short of grabbing it from her locked jaws, she downed several. That can't be good for her. The pile is covered with gravel now, maybe she'll forget about it. Ha! ;)