Should I Clean Up After My Dogs Myself or Hire a Service? (A Northern Colorado Guide)

Pooper Dooper • April 2026 • Northern Colorado

Short Answer: It comes down to three things: how much time you genuinely have, how consistently you'll actually do it, and how much you value a yard you can use without thinking. Handling it yourself can absolutely work if you're willing to set a real schedule and stick to it through every season. Hiring Pooper Dooper starts at $12 per weekly visit, which removes the chore entirely and keeps the yard reliably clean. Below, we'll walk through the honest trade-offs so you can decide which one fits your life.

If you're thinking about whether to keep handling this yourself or finally hand it off, you're probably standing in one of two places.

You might be looking at the yard right now, doing the math: "I really should just go do it. But I also said that last weekend." You know it'll take twenty minutes. You also know those twenty minutes have been waiting for you for two weeks now.

Or you might be the type who's been doing it religiously, every Sunday, no exceptions. And you're wondering whether spending a small amount each month to get that hour of your life back is foolish or smart.

Either way, you're in a good spot to make this decision well, because the answer isn't one-size-fits-all. We've helped Northern Colorado households from Fort Collins to Windsor work through this exact question, and we're going to walk you through the same honest framework we use with them.

Let's Start With What DIY Actually Costs

Most people assume DIY is free. It's not, but it's not expensive either. Here's the realistic budget for handling cleanup yourself:

So you're looking at roughly $100 in startup costs and $80 to $150 a year in supplies. From a pure dollars-and-cents view, DIY wins easily.

The catch is that the cost isn't really in the equipment. It's in the time and the consistency.

The Real DIY Cost: Time and Mental Load

Here's what we hear from Northern Colorado households who tried DIY first and eventually called us:

"I'd skip a week, and then the next week was twice as bad, and then I'd skip again because it felt like such a big project."

"My husband and I would each assume the other one had done it."

"We were great about it April through October. Then winter hit and the yard turned into a minefield by spring."

That last one is especially common in our part of Colorado. Snow buries everything from December through March, and what was hidden is suddenly very, very visible by April.

The pattern is almost always the same. DIY isn't hard. Staying consistent with DIY for fifty-two weeks a year is hard.

For a one-dog household with an average yard, weekly cleanup runs about fifteen to twenty minutes. Two dogs, twenty to thirty minutes. Three or more dogs, you're looking at thirty-five minutes or more, especially if any time has passed since the last cleanup.

A weekly DIY routine adds up to somewhere between thirteen and thirty hours a year. That's not nothing, but for most people, the time isn't even the biggest issue. The mental load is.

What Professional Service Actually Saves You

Here's what hiring out replaces, beyond just the chore itself:

For weekly Pooper Dooper service starting at $12 per visit, you're trading a small monthly cost for a yard that's reliably clean every single week of the year.

The Framework We Use With Every Customer

When someone is genuinely on the fence, we walk them through three questions. They tell you almost everything you need to know.

Question 1: Will You Actually Do It Every Single Week?

Be honest with yourself here. Not "am I capable of it?" but "have I done it for the last twelve weeks straight?" If the answer is yes, DIY is working for you, and there's no reason to fix what isn't broken. If you've skipped two of the last twelve, it's worth asking whether the system is actually working, or whether you're just paying the cost in delayed cleanups.

Question 2: How Do You Feel About the Yard Right Now?

Walk outside. Look around. Is the yard one you actually use? Do your kids play on it without thinking? Do you eat dinner on the patio? Or has it slowly become a place you avoid?

The cost of an unusable yard is invisible but real. You bought (or rented) the home with that yard for a reason. When dog waste makes it off-limits, you're paying for square footage you're not using.

Question 3: What's Your Time Worth Right Now?

Different seasons of life produce different answers. New parents, people working two jobs, anyone with a back or knee issue, households with three or more dogs: the math tips toward hiring out fast. People who genuinely enjoy yard work and have the schedule for it: DIY is a great choice and we'd never push you off it.

When DIY Genuinely Makes More Sense

We're going to be straight with you here, because we'd rather you make the right call than the call that benefits us.

DIY is the better choice if:

If any of those describe you, save your money. Buy a good scooper, set a reminder, and you're set.

When Professional Service Is the Better Call

On the other side, professional cleanup tends to pay off when:

What to Expect If You Hire Pooper Dooper

If you decide to hire out, here's what working with us looks like:

You request a free quote through our website. We send back a custom price for your yard and your dogs, usually the same day. You sign up through our Sweep and Go customer portal, pick your service day, and we go to work. On your scheduled day, our team arrives, walks your full property, removes all waste, and sanitizes equipment and shoe covers with kennel-grade disinfectant before moving on. You'll get a text when we're en route, an email when we're done, and a photo of your closed gate so you know your pets are secure. You don't need to be home. You don't need to do anything other than make sure gates are unlocked. We bill monthly, after the work is done. No contract.

If something isn't right, we make it right. Your satisfaction is guaranteed.

Your Next Step

Here's our honest recommendation: if you've been doing DIY consistently and it's working, keep going. If you've been doing DIY inconsistently and the yard reflects it, give Pooper Dooper one month. That's enough time to feel what a reliably clean yard does for your weekends, your patio, and the time you actually spend outside. If it's worth it, you'll know. If it's not, there's no contract holding you in place either way.

Either way, we hope this gave you a real framework for making the call. The right answer is the one that fits your life right now, not the one a marketing page tells you to pick.

Ready to get a quote? Give us a call at (970) 235-0124, send us a text, or request a free quote through our website. We'll ask a few questions about your yard, your dogs, and your schedule, and we'll send back a custom price for your specific situation, usually the same day.

Pooper Dooper proudly serves Fort Collins, Loveland, Timnath, Wellington, Windsor, and the surrounding Northern Colorado area.