Treat the back door as a wet room in miniature
Wet walks go wrong in the doorway, not out on the pavement. A soaked dog shakes once, a wet lead lands on a dry coat, and the towel you need is buried under yesterday's muddy one. Give the back door a defined wet zone, ideally the stretch of floor your dog crosses between the door and the rest of the house. A washable, absorbent mat large enough for your dog to stand and turn on catches the first shake, and everything in your system should be reachable while you stand on that mat holding the lead, because letting go to hunt for supplies is when clean walls get decorated.
Hang leads and coats where they can drip safely
Fix hooks for the lead, harness and coat directly above the mat or above a shallow drip tray, so water from a rain-soaked coat falls somewhere designed for it instead of pooling on flooring. Put the hooks for the gear currently in use at the front and any spares behind or higher, so a cold, wet-handed return never becomes a fumble through tangled straps. If your dog wears different coats for drizzle and downpour, hang the heavier one on the sturdiest hook, since a saturated coat weighs far more than it did when dry. Outdoor human kit, such as your own waterproof and boots, belongs on a separate hook row so dog gear does not absorb smells and mud from yours.
Run towels as a clean stack and a dirty basket
Towels fail as a system when clean and used ones share a pile. Keep a small stack of clean, dry towels folded on a shelf or in an open box at your grabbing height, and place a laundry basket or bucket immediately beside the mat for towels that have done their job. The rule is simple enough for anyone in the house to follow half-asleep: a towel is used once for a full wet-dog dry, then it goes in the basket, never back on the stack. Keep fewer towels in the station than you own, and refill the stack from the clean laundry in one go, which makes it obvious at a glance when wash day for dog towels cannot wait any longer.
Work the same coming-home sequence every time
Consistency turns a chaotic doorway into a routine your dog anticipates and cooperates with. Come in, close the door, and ask for a stand or sit on the mat before anything comes off. Unclip the lead and hang it up first so it is off the floor, then remove the coat straight onto its hook, then towel the body, legs and paws in the same order while the mat catches the drips. Only when paws are dry does your dog step off the mat into the house. With puppies or dogs who hate being towelled, pair each stage with a treat delivered on the mat, so the sequence itself predicts good things and the dog starts offering the stand without being held in place.
Share the reset so the station is never empty
The system breaks when one person uses the last clean towel and nobody knows. Decide who washes the dog-towel load, who refills the clean stack and who checks that a spare lead is hanging ready, and rotate those small jobs rather than leaving them to whoever notices first. A quick glance before the evening walk, checking the stack and the basket, prevents the worst version of the problem, which is discovering an empty station while a dripping dog waits. Recording those reset jobs in KinsLe with Care Teams, where each person marks a towel wash or restock as completed, keeps the back door ready for the next wet walk without a household argument about whose turn it was.