Rid Your Grass of Dog Urine Spots
After they've successfully potty trained their pets, a new problem besets many dog owners: a lawn dotted by sizable dark green or yellow-brown patches. These discolored spots are the result of dog urine's high levels of nitrogen. If your dog frequents the same areas for elimination, as many dogs do, the nitrogen levels build up on and eventually burn the grass. If you put a stop to these accidental nitrogen fertilizer applications, most dog urine spots will self-heal.
Steps
- Go outside with your dog while he does his business, and observe where he's eliminating. After he finishes up, use a pet waste bag to grab any feces, and then give the grass a quick spray with a hose to diffuse the nitrogen-containing urine. If you don't have a garden hose, just use a bucket of water.
- Switch your dog's food to a high-quality protein dog food, which you can find at your veterinarian's office or a pet supply store. As natural omnivores, dogs eat high amounts of proteins, and nitrogen is the by-product of their body's protein breakdown process. Dogs better digest high-quality proteins. Since your dog uses less effort to breakdown these better proteins, he produces less nitrogen. By reducing the amount of lower-quality proteins in your dog's diet, you can reduce the amount of nitrogen he deposits in your yard.
- Replace one of your dog's meals every day or every other day with high-quality canned food. The extra water in the canned food will dilute your dog's urine, and therefore reduce the potency of the nitrogen he deposits.
- Leave water out all the time to encourage your dog to drink more water. Use an automatically refilling water bowl if you have a hard time remembering to refill your pet's water bowl.
- Fertilize the rest of your lawn with nitrogen fertilizer to create a more unified appearance. After you've started dispersing the nitrogen in your dog's urine with water, you'll notice the process not only keeps the grass from burning, but actually improves the area and surrounding grass's appearance. This accidental lawn fertilization results in a bright green, lush lawn section that still doesn't fit in with rest of the yard. Applying fertilizer to the remainder of your lawn can merge the two areas.
- Reseed areas that don't recover.
- Water the area generously to dilute the salts that accumulated in the grass's root zone.
- Pull up the dead grass and break up the soil with a small spade.
- Mix equal parts, about a handful each, of potting soil, grass seed and the soil you just broke up. Put the mixture over the bare area, and lightly pack it down.
- Water the packed mixture right away. Check the soil for moisture and water the area whenever the soil dries. When seedlings appear, resume normal watering.
Tips
- If you can't be there to douse the area after every elimination because your dog likes to spend a lot of time in the yard, make a habit to water troubled areas within eight hours of your pet's last outdoor playtime.
- Reseed lawn.
Warnings
- Without taking preventative measures to avoid regularly repairing your grass's dog urine spots, you'll probably have to regularly reseed the grass.
Things You'll Need
- Pet waste bag
- Water hose or a bucket full of water
- High-quality protein canned food
- Auto-fill water bowl
- Nitrogen fertilizer
- Garden spade
- Potting soil
- Grass seed
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