Dog Poop Scooping in Horizon City, Texas

Horizon City is one of GP Scoops' two main areas, along with El Paso. It is a community of families, and a lot of those families have dogs. Many homes here are in newer subdivisions, with backyards finished in rock, gravel or turf and enclosed by block walls. Those yards look clean from the street but hold heat and odor in the back, where the dogs spend their day. Busy schedules and commutes into El Paso leave little time for scooping, which is where a regular visit helps.

Horizon City sits on open desert east of the Rio Grande valley, in El Paso County. The area incorporated as a town in 1988 and is still ringed by unincorporated county land. Its growth has come mostly from new neighborhoods: the town counts 5,233 residents in 2000, 16,735 in 2010 and 22,489 in 2020. The weather is the same as El Paso's, with hot, dry summers, a late-summer monsoon season and windy springs.

The Town of Horizon City has its own government, but it does not run utilities. Its website points residents to the Horizon Regional Municipal Utility District for water, sewer and trash service, so questions about your trash cart and pickup go to the district rather than town hall. The town's Code Enforcement Department handles complaints about ordinance violations, and its posted ordinances include one on weeds and rubbish nuisances and a separate animal ordinance. If a notice about your yard is what has you looking for help, the department can tell you what it covers.

The town maintains three public parks. Golden Eagle Park, next to Frank Macias Elementary, has a walking path, a playground and a splash pad that opens daily from May through August. Desmond Corcoran Park, off Rodman and Veny Webb Streets, has ball fields, courts and a covered picnic area, and Horizon Mesa Park off Desert Mist Drive has a walking path and green space. None of them is a dog park. Town park rules require dogs on a leash and owners to clean up after them, and the parks close from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Not every nearby address is inside the town. Its FAQ points to the zoning map: parcels inside the marked city limits are the town's, and parcels outside them fall under El Paso County. Inside the limits, Code Enforcement also takes reports of stray or dead animals, and the town sends residents to the City of El Paso's Animal Services for other animal help.

New-construction yards in Horizon City often start as bare dirt or simple rock landscaping until owners finish them, and many owners add artificial turf for their dogs. Dirt yards turn muddy in monsoon storms and dusty in the spring wind, and waste mixes into both. That mud matters for more than shoes. University of California pest guidance lists soil mixed with animal waste among the warm, moist places house flies lay eggs, so a dirt yard after a storm can breed flies as well as smell.

Rain behaves differently here. The town's stormwater plan describes most of Horizon City as hummocky Chihuahuan Desert, where rain collects in low spots and then evaporates or soaks in instead of running to a storm drain. Only along the western escarpment does runoff reach the arroyos. In a backyard on that kind of ground, water can stand in the same low corner after every storm, so tell us where it pools.

The town's nuisance ordinance asks owners and occupants to keep property in a safe, sanitary condition, to keep refuse entirely inside a closed container made for trash pickup, and not to let stagnant water sit where it could draw mosquitoes, rodents or other pests. Bagged dog waste that goes out with the trash fits that rule when it stays inside a closed cart.

Turf stays green but holds urine odor in the heat. If you are adding turf to a newly finished backyard, one manufacturer's care manual describes a settling period of at least two weeks after installation, when the installer may need to make small adjustments. Ask your installer about that period, and for the care guide, before the dogs make it their bathroom. Tell us which of these describes your yard, and whether the dogs have the whole backyard or a side run, so the visit covers the right ground.