All the world loves a dog. Unfortunately, while your pet might be man’s best friend, your pooch (or your neighbors) can wreak serious havoc on your lawn. Dog urine contains various minerals, nutrients, and other substances that can leave your once-green lawn with brown spots, dying grass, and bald patches.
Luckily, there are several solutions to your problem, and a landscaping company specializing in lawn repair for dog urine can help you find the right one to bring your lawn back to life.
Problems Caused By Dog Urine
Dog urine can cause a few different types of lawn damage, both of which can be quite unsightly but are fixable with the proper repair and prevention procedures. First off, owing to its high nitrogen content, dog urine can cause uneven green spots in an otherwise uniform lawn color. In this case, the grass where a dog has relieved himself may actually be greener than the surrounding areas.
The more severe (and more common) complaint is brown spots caused by dog urine. Because dogs are creatures of habit, they tend to return to the same scents and the same areas to relieve themselves. Over time, the urine salts will dry out and kill the grass, leaving large patches of ugly brown, or even bits of lawn where the grass is entirely bald.
Lawn Repair Solutions For Dog Urine
A first step in preventing dog urine damage is to ensure that your lawn is in good health in general, as a lawn that is getting the necessary nutrients and has healthy, lush grass, is more resistant to the damage caused by urine. A lawn care company can assist you in assessing your lawn’s particular needs based on climate, soil conditions, and lifestyle factors.
Additionally, many homeowners choose to restrict dogs’ access to areas of the lawn that have been affected. Training your own dog to avoid certain areas is certainly an option, but does not address the problem of other dogs using your lawn as a bathroom. Additionally, it’s important to remember that even if you can prevent the area from further dog urine damage, you will still need to repair the damage that has been done.
Green lawn spots from dog urine are often a sign that your lawn is low on nitrogen. When this happens, the soil uptakes the nitrogen that is present in dog urine, which results in brighter green grass that doesn’t match the rest of the lawn. Part of the dog urine repair process, in this case, is to assess the nutritional needs of your lawn. A lawn care company can then suggest a program (which will likely include fertilization with nitrogen) to bring the entire yard to that same bright green.
To correct brown spots caused by dog urine may be a bit trickier, as the grass there has suffered damage. In fact, those brown spots that you see are dead or dying grass. While it isn’t possible to resurrect the dead grass that is there, the spot can be repaired and re-seeded to match the rest of the lawn. It’s important to note that this kind of damage appears more often in lawns that are overly dry. A stressed-out lawn that is lacking in the proper nutrients and water is much more susceptible to the problem of brown spots from dog urine.
Your best bet to repair lawn damage from dog urine is to contact a lawn care expert, who can test your soil and devise a program to not only repair the spots affected by urine but cultivate a healthier lawn overall.