Sundar Narasimhan wrote in news:Zoxva.847784$S_4.863712 @rwcrnsc53:
Hi, Do people have suggestions for how to deal w/ this? We let our dog
> out in the back yard and a few days later I find these six-eight inch
> circles of dead grass..
>
> Is there anything I can do to counter this? Thanks.
>
I just saw this today (sept) and just wanted to respond, if anyone sees it.
Actually, someone did give the best response most vet / pet supply stores will give you .... water the spot thoroughly. And another one mentioned that it is a fertilizer burn ... also right again.
It's not that you have to follow your dog around with a hose, but if you water (sprinkler or direct hose) the area they use often, it does help dilute the nitrogen that is causing the burns.
Lori Ann (owner of two dogs on 3+ acres, so fortunately, they have lots of room to fertilize :-))
Tomato juice!! Someone told me to add tomato juice to the dogs food daily and the acid in the juice would dilute the acid in the dog urine. At first I thought they were crazy but it did work, the following spring I started giving both dogs tomato juice daily and no brown spots. I've been spot free for two years. I hope this helps, it's also a lot cheaper than the other stuff you buy. Heather
I don't have any studies at hand to back this up, and I'm too lazy to look for them just now, but I believe that when you start messing around with the Ph of the dog's urine, you run the risk of problems with their urinary tract system (more prone to infection, etc.). If you wanted to try this, you might want to do some research first.
I heard that the only thing tomato juice does is makes your dog more thirsty (from all the salt),so they drink more water, and drinking all that extra water makes the dogs urine more diluted, in turn causing less harm to the grass.
To the OP, Search the archives (or post your question on) rec.pets.dogs.misc The subject has been hashed over on that group many times.
David, owner of 2 female & 1 male dogs, who cause minimum damage to my lawn thanks to good healthy soil, annual dressings of compost, aeration, etc.
I've owned three female dogs (one at a time) over the last 40 years, and have now owned a male for about six months.
Not one of these dogs ever caused spots on my lawn. They were all neutered. Is it possible that might have been the reason?
I do have healthy soil--I haven't fertilized or watered my lawn, even during our Pennsylvania droughts, for at least 20 years. I mow it 3" high and let the clippings lie.
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I wouldn't suggest doing this, but I value my dogs over my grass.
There's a reason your dogs' urine is more acidic. You'll end up making them more likely to get urinary tract infections. I'd rather have a few yellow spots in my backyard. I overseed in the spring, and the lawn is back to normal before summer. And then the whole cycle starts again. :)
I'd disagree. Maybe not exclusively dog urine, but a combination of dog urine and feces. Have a couple dogs so that the alpha follows the other one around and re-urinates over the same spot, and it's easy to get a build up.
I have a few spots that show classic signs of too much nitrogen concentrated in one place: small dead area, surrounded by luxurious, greener growth rings, and then the normal grass.
Last winter was an exception in that we didn't have a constant cover of snow. There were more dead spots this spring than usual since the dogs were doing their business on the grass, and there wasn't much precipitation to dilute it.
I can track my dead spots to my dogs. But who cares? I'm not after the perfect lawn. My goal is a mostly green area that's fun for my family and dogs to run around and play in. :)
Yes. We have fewer problems when we have lots of precipitation. During the summer dry season when we're soaking the grass once a week, that's long enough between waterings.
Under healthful ordinary garden conditions, it cannot, as Dr. A.W. Allard's study has shown. Nitrogen burn could be induced only by concentrating dog urine before application, & even then it was taken in as fertilizer by some grasses & was only harmful to grasses that were sensitive to urea. As for shrubs, as the application of urea from fertilizers or dogs' bladders does not douse a shrub top to bottom as can happen to turf, even the slight possibility that you're concentrating the urine before application to sensitive types of grass is not apt to harm the shrubs.
But folklore never dies & every dead patch anyone ever sees in their yard is going to be some madman's excuse to poison the neighbors' completely innocent dogs.
When brown dead spots appear in lawns, it is almost always a fungus or pathogen caused it. But people blame dogs because these patches are often about as big & round as when a dog does it on linoleum (it would not be a big round puddle on a lawn, but it's what peoples' imaginations envision even on pourous ground).
Your observation is correct Vince, though as J. D. C. notes, it has nothing to do with hormones; fact is, there's not enough nitrogen in normal dog urine to burn grass; & even the potentially harmful amonia release would require unusually filthy disease-ridden conditions to build up sufficiently to kill lawns.
The "active" ingredient in urine that MIGHT but RARELY in CONCENTRATED form burn particularly SENSITIVE types of grass is urea. This is also a primary ingredient in fertilizers. Too much fertilizer can burn plants, yes, but there's nothing magically extra-burny about urea in dog piss -- quite the opposite, it is so quickly diluted by normal watering it cannot accumulate.
Dog urine has a POSITIVE fertilizing impact on grasses that are healthy & which are not already over fertilized. OLD urine that smells especially bad can also have harmful amonia, but fresh urine does not; & amonia dissipates so rapidly, conditions for it to accumulate in the garden would have to be especially unwholesome for more reasons than a dog's presence.
Certainly "Too much nitrogen" can burn plants (not generally causing round brown patches as do pathogenic problems however). There is not enough nitrogen in dog urine to burn plants; it either has to be artificially concentrated to be harmful, or combined with over-fertilizing generally, sending the amount of nitrogen over the upper limits of safety for the grass. Even concentrated, most grasses would be unaffected, though kentucky bluegrass & bermuda grass can be sensitive under these extreme cases.
I repeat, any dog urine can burn lawns or shrubs. The notion that some dog urine is better than other is nonsense. Any urine can convert to ammonia, not just bad smelling urine. Dump enough ammonia or other nitrogen in one spot and it will burn.
My sister raises dogs for field and bench; she knows very well the consequences of dog urine on lawns. Unlike brainless or irresponsible dog owners, she doesn't let her mutts ruin other folks' property.
the amount of urine and how much rain is diluting the urine will determine if there is going to be brown spots or not.
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the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the endorsements or recommendations I make.
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