More on dog pee and dead grass

RJ – posted 08 September 2002 07:02

My Rottie/Sherpherd puppy used to pee in the back yard occasionally and there were dead spots. A month has passed since we realized that was causing the problem and stopped letting her do it there. Now the patches are larger (3 to 4 feet) and irregular (like diffuse disease as opposed to brown circles). Is this common? What can I do? We have a lanscaping co. that is supposed to treat the lawn but I can’t wait forever for them to get off the stick. Please help. Thanks.

mi*********@ea*******.net – posted 08 September 2002 10:30

The spots that your dog peed on are most likely going to have to be reseeded. The active ingredient in urine is Nitrogenwhich happens to be the first number in fertilizer analysis (ex. 38-16-23) so in essence your dog has over fertilized your lawn-and since dogs ussually return to the same spots to pee-he has been over fertilizing in those spots. I have found with my own lawn, that lots of water after the dogs pee-in those spots seems to “wash” away or dilute the nitrogen.Hope this helps.

haragat – posted 13 July 2004 06:11

can cat pee do the same thing to yards? we have st. augustine grass and the back yard where the cats like to hang out is the only area that is affected with these coffee saucer size brown spots. Is there anything that I can put on my lawn that will neutralize the cat urine? Thanks

TRH

bluesea112 – posted 23 August 2004 08:50

Mike was partly right about the dog urine. Dog urine is high in Nitrogen, but that is not what killed the grass. The grass is most likely thriving on the perimeter of the urine spot. That is from the Nitrogen in the urine. The dead spot is from the salt in urine. If you saturate the urine with water as soon as the dog urinates, it dilutes the salts enough that you grass will not die in that spot. If the spot is already dead, saturate with water twice a day. Eventually the grass will grow back on that spot. The spot is growing because other animals are most likely peeing on that same spot, even if your dog is not. Put up a little chicken wire around the dead spot to keep other animals out, and you will find that the spot stops growing. Good luck.

y2buddy – posted 27 August 2004 04:38

quote:Originally posted by bluesea112: Put up a little chicken wire around the dead spot to keep other animals out, and you will find that the spot stops growing. Good luck.

okay, so what do you do about the male dogs?