sunny day / muddy feet

My young black lab likes to be outside during the day. I live in
Orlando so it's nice and sunny, and I live next to a pond so he can
play in the yard and go swimming whenever he wants to. But he's also
dug up my entire back yard. I like to let him play by himself and leave
the back door open so he can go in and out, but now I have to deal with
him swimming, walking with wet feet through my dirt pile yard, and
coming inside with muddy feet.

Can someone recommend a solution to one of these problems besides
closing the door- Can I buy a huge mat to go over the dirt in my yard
to prevent muddiness or some kind of automatic foot washer system?
Where are the pet engineers?

Janet B...

A lot of home have "mudrooms" for this purpose! You can create one of
sorts with a waterhog rug inside a door, or on a screened porch -
something to catch the grunge before he comes in. You can also teach
him that there is one area where he is allowed to dig and the rest is
off limits, thus minimizing the dirt piles. The solution to him
staying clean is supervising him and you making the decisions for when
he can swim, dig, etc. With free range, a young lab will do what he
loves, and well......

One of the magazines I get had a home (FL too I believe) that had a
pool RIGHT out of the living room doors. And I mean RIGHT - no
walkway, no nothing - open the door and directly into the pool. They
had a lab who apparently spends a lot of time diving from the LR into
the pool, and coming back in. The house looked pristine. Maybe they
have full time staff mopping the floor.

I rely on a large indoor/outdoor rug inside my door to the patio/back
yard. I have 3 retrievers who can get some pretty muddy feet, even
without swimming and digging. I am not about to spend my life wiping
12 feet every half hour, so the rug works at capturing a fair amount
of it, and my Pergo floors on that level survive the rest.

-Thanks
Todd Smith