Urine Spots On Your Lawn

While we're talking about lawns, that reminds me of a question I get asked often this time of year. From time to time, someone will ask...why is my dog's urine causing these spots on my lawn? Is there something wrong with her kidneys? What can we giver her to cure it? Well if you've had a dog that urinates on your lawn, you've surely seen these spots before. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with your dog's urinary tract that is causing these spots. One of the primary components of urine is nitrogen, which is also a primary component of soil fertilizer. As you know, too much fertilizer will burn the grass; such is the case with strong urine and its effect on the grass.

If you look on the internet, you'll find information about counter-acting the acidity of urine and tons of gimmicks and products that will supposedly do that. Understand that the pH of the urine typically doesn't contribute much at all to this problem. Dog urine is normally fairly neutral or only slightly acidic, not usually acidic enough to cause problems. It is simply the nitrogen that is created from dietary protein metabolism; this is a normal process. Unless your dog is a vegetarian (wouldn't recommend that), then she will always have some nitrogen in her urine.

Notice, I say "she"...this is because typically although both male and females both have about the same amount of nitrogen in their urine, the marking habits of males tends to spread their urine in a much broader pattern, thus not concentrating it in one particular area.

So what do we do about this? Well, what I do is train my dog to urinate in a certain designated area of my lawn so that if spotting occurs it will be out of plain site. Some people suggest installing an area of pea gravel in the back of the lawn for the dog to urinate in. This is a good idea and just takes a little training to get them to use it. For me training the dog to urinate in a designated area is the simplest method; however, if you aren't dog saavy and find it difficult to retrain your dog, there are other options. Simply watering down the area, immediately after she's urinated there, will definately help tremendously. This will dilute the nitrogen and actually allow it to fertilize the grass, resulting in a nice green spot, instead of a brown one. Even if it has been a few days and the grass is starting to turn brown, watering the area will still usually turn it back green. One of these two options is probably your best bet.

If you look elsewhere, you'll see people saying things like..."give your dog tomato ketchup" and "cut back on her meat or protein". This is unnecessarily treating the dog for a problem that doesn't exist with her. In fact, you could be doing serious harm to your dog by trying this approach. So, don't go altering her diet or trying to give her home remedies and such, because most won't work and those that do can be harmful.

There are some lawn products that will help by keeping the soil moist and naturally doing the diluting for you, like this product. I think it would work well, especially if the grass is already dead in a certain area. Then there are lots of spray products that claim to work by neutralizing the nitrogen, like this product; I don't think I'd waste my money on these. They may help, but why buy neutralizers when you've already got a water hose that will do the same thing.

Point is, urine is a fertilizer; a little is great but a lot can be unsightly. So to have a nice green lawn, train your dog to urinate elsewhere or keep the spots watered down and everybody's happy, even your lawn!