You love your dog. Your family loves your dog. Your neighbors might even love your dog. Your lawn? It probably doesn’t love your dog. You don’t have to banish your dog to a kenneled corner of your yard to keep your yard looking tip-top when you adopt strategies that protect your lawn from dog urine.
Many pet owners erroneously blame their dogs for spotting on lawns that’s actually caused by fungus or other issues. To make sure it’s a potty issue you’re dealing with, and not an infection, pull the grass from the soil at the brown spot. If the grass uproots easily, it’s a sign of infection. If the roots hold, dog urine is the culprit.
If dog urine is the culprit, your pooch is overloading your soil with nitrogen in his waste. Follow these tips to help improve your lawn’s health:
- Hose it Down: When your pup does his business, immediately follow behind him with a watering can or the hose. Diluting urine in the topsoil can greatly prevent burns.
- Think About a Dietary Supplement: Talk to your veterinarian about a supplement such as Green-UM or NaturVet GrassSaver that binds with nitrogen in dog urine to help prevent turf damage.
- Fertilize Smartly: Many fertilizers contain nitrogen, so avoid applying them to your lawn in areas your dog uses. This strategy, of course, will be more effective if you potty-train your pup to use a single part of your yard.
- Reseed Smartly: When re-seeding urine-burned areas, select species that are more tolerant of high nitrogen levels. Seek fescue and ryegrass over Kentucky bluegrass and Bermuda varieites.
- Treat Your Lawn: Most garden stores offer soil treatments formulated to break down salts and enzymes in dog waste. Many of these feature naturally occurring enzymes, and are perfectly safe to kids and pets.
Having a dog doesn’t doom your lawn to second-rate status. With several approaches to protect your lawn from dog urine available, every homeowner should be able to find an approach that works for them.
