Emma3's quote reminded me of one of the stupidest thing I've done and it involved my pugs. At the time, I had 4.

We have a small backyard and our original patio was built so that it was covered by the roof. Since three walls of that patio were already in place and French doors exited from the den into the space, we had the outside opening (what had been open to the backyard) glassed-in to create a sunroom. The room now has one wall of glass that looks out on the backyard.

So! That left us without a patio. The pugs could exit out the sunroom door to the backyard but I wanted a new patio with an arbor, etc.

We planned for a large patio with a short brick retaining wall. A contractor came with his crew and dug out the area for the new patio and left. Their plan was to come back the next day to fill the excavated area (which must have been app. 8" deep) with concrete.

Ahh, the best laid plans of mice and men! That night it started raining and it basically rained for a week, totally filling the area excavated for the new patio with muddy water that had NO way to drain. I might add that our soil is pretty much red clay!

My pugs had no way to get from the doggie door across the muddy, rain-filled, 14 ft. wide lake to the lawn beyond to do their business.

That is until I decided I'd singlehandedly build them a bridge using cinderblocks. I waded around, slipping, sliding in that slimey muck for hours carefully placing the heavy cinderblocks but, in the end, it worked beautifully - the pugs never questioned their somewhat narrow bridge, none ever fell in and it saved me days on end of taking four dogs out on leash.

We had to use the bridge for 2-3 weeks before the hole dried out and the concrete could be poured.