You love your canine best friend but he just keeps on ruining your otherwise well-maintained lawn. You end up with lawn burns. Lawn burns happen when urine from dogs that is rich in nitrogen gets into the grass in your lawn, turning it yellowish or brown in color. It’s a fact that nitrogen is good for soil and plant growth, but too much of it will cause the plant to dry out or “burn” with excess nitrogen. Luckily, there are ways you can prevent an extreme case of lawn burn from happening. Follow these tips.
- Train your dog to do his business at a designated spot. This is one of the important things you should train your dog to do when he’s still young. Assign a specific toilet spot for your dog in your front or back yard. Cover it with mulch or gravel to mask the odor of urine and feces. At least you won’t have lawn burns all over the place because you only have one ugly urine spot to deal with. Every time your dog does right and pees in his toilet spot, you should reward him with a treat or a pat on the head.
- Train your dog to drink more water. Change your dog’s water bowl every day and make sure he drinks clean water. Refill the water bowl as needed. Lots of water can help lower the acidity and nitrogen content of your dog’s urine.
- Give your dog premium dog food and supplement. The more heavy on the protein your dog’s diet is, the more nitrogen rich his urine and feces will be. Special kinds of dog food contain just the right amount of protein your dog needs. There are also food supplements that can help neutralize the nitrogen in dog urine. One example is Lawn Guard Tablets and Bites. Before doing this, it’s recommended that you consult with your veterinarian first to make sure that a change in diet or additional supplements will not harm his health or change the pH balance of his urine.
- Dilute the urine spot with lots of water. As soon as you can, hose down those spots your dog urinated on. Do this preferably at the same day your dog did it. Water can help saturate and distribute the nitrogen content in your dog’s urine.
- Replace your grass with tougher greens. Kentucky bluegrass or Bermuda grass won’t stand a chance against your dog’s urine. It will easily turn dry and die. Use tougher types of grass like perennial ryegrass or fescues. These may not be one hundred percent urine resistant, but they won’t as easily fizzle unlike delicate types.
- Dig out or cover the urine spot. Cover the urine spot with topsoil. Another option is to replace it with a piece of sod—a layer of soil with a mat of grass. You can also choose to reseed or over-seed the soil.
- Apply a lawn treatment solution. There are solutions that come in a bottle like Dogonit Lawn Repair. It’s an organic, biodegradable liquid that treats soil by flushing salts from the root zone of grass. It also loosens compacted soil, allowing water, air, and nutrients to penetrate into it to stimulate plant growth. As long as you spray on the urine spots immediately, lawn burns can be prevented. The solution does not contain harmful chemicals for pets, humans, and the environment.
With these easy and practical steps, you end up caring both for your canine best friend and that patch of greenery you are so proud of.