Paving or decking - with dogs?

We have a small to medium back garden. We have 2 dogs. and we used to have a lovely grassy back garden, now it's very patchy, with dogs running around, they have left track marks and plenty of dog doo doo. I was all on for getting decking, immediately after back door, and leave grassy section, friend told me decking can attract rats! With loads of dog muck all over our grass I'm thinking maybe paving and leave a smaller grass area. Do you have either decking/paving in your back garden? If so what is more cost effective? And even better if you have dogs what would you reccomend?

Princess09 I am the very same! we're looking into right now as hopefully getting better weather! Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I'd go for paving. Decking only lasts so long and needs a fair bit of work to keep it looking good. I'd say rats might not be that much of a worry if you have dogs, but in general decking does provide somewhere for rats to make their nests out of harms way, so unless your dogs are ratters you could find that a problem.

we have 2 dogs and our back garden in slabbed. its quite easy to clean up after them, with decking it would be harder i imagine with all the grouves.

Id go paving. Id also recommend getting rid of the grass. Ive got 2 big dogs and i got rid of the grass and put down gravel and paved out bit further. Its brill, no muck and wet and very easy to keep clean and to pick up the poo's too.

Do you not miss the grass?

[quote="Kickasswife":1g09v6aw]Do you not miss the grass? [/quote:1g09v6aw] Not one bit , it was a nightmare having grass. Ive 2 rottweilers so in the winter it was a disaster and now i dont have to worry about mowing it or anything. Its so much cleaner and brighter and i can clean poo up much easier. Id never go back to having grass with dogs around. My back garden isnt that big though, i live in a terraced house in an estate so its not huge.

I think I will have to have some grass, maybe half paving/gravel and some grass towards back. I know this is like asking how long is a piece of string and a typical girl question, but ball park figure, how much should I expect to pay for paving? (I ask with no idea of measurements! apart from small/medium ) I'm thinking ideally €1,000 or under max €2000

It really does depend on the area size and what type of paving you get. I just got the plain square grey slabs think they are about 1ft x1ft in size roughly and 2 rows of them, didnt cost that much, think it was less than 200euro, but my dad put them down, it wasnt a big job really.

Paving would be your best bet with dogs, decking is a serious amount of work alright, between upkeep and the fact that dogs can DESTROY it.