| My new dog got really sick from eating very tiny mushrooms that started growing in the mulch in the dog potty area. We live in Austin Texas. It can go a year without raining and then suddenly start and then mushrooms everywhere almost instantly! This is an emergency situation to keep our dog alive so we decided we needed to build a deck for the dogs instead of using mulch to be really safe. We have put down cement blocks for a base and then pressure treated lumber as support and then we are putting cedar on top of that because pressure treated can be toxic to dogs.
We do not care about preserving the beauty of the cedar - but - we do need this wood to be sealed extremely well because it has to stand up to doggie excrement and urine as long as possible and needs to last without rotting and I would like to go as long as possible without having to reseal/oil/stain/whatever.
It is a small deck and the dogs are small and it is in an out of the way area that won't be seen much on the side of the house.
We have used Cabots opaque stain on things made of pressure treated wood and that hasn't held up well - but granted - we didn't stain it fast enough and we used opaque white sealer/stain on cedar shingles and the bleeding is awful. But we DO have a can of Cabots opaque stain that we could use on the cedar if it is the best thing to use.
Do we need to do anything to this new cedar planking first and then what should we use to make this cedar as doggie and weatherproof as possible.
Thank you. | 
