I've been looking for something to help my lawn survive dog urine - I have her trained to go in one place and she does, mostly. But not always. I see that there are supplements available, but I'm a little hesitant of giving my dog something like this.
There are also powders that you put on the burn spots directly - even green lawn paint!
Anyone have any luck ending burn spots?

Out vet recommended supplementing green beans with the regular dog food. It seemed to reduce the issue. We ended up having 1/2 the back yard in decomposed granite and trained our previous female Rottie to use it.

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Originally posted by az4783054:
Out vet recommended supplementing green beans with the regular dog food. It seemed to reduce the issue.

Ah, ok That would be easy enough to try - is that canned or fresh, or cooked fresh?

We give our Rottie frozen green beans as a "treat" and filler, she is on a diet. Can't speak of it's powers on the urine burning the grass though

We have a female GSD inside a fenced and sodded area of about 1600 sq ft. In the spring, with green up, we see lots of dead spots all over the yard. A couple years ago we came upon a product called See Spot Run. It’s a liquid that attaches to a garden hose. It neutralizes the high nitrogen content that burns the lawn. It works very well for us and within a month or so, the lawn looks very good—and our dog, of course, spends more time outside in the warm weather.

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Originally posted by Dzozer:

quote:

Originally posted by az4783054:
Out vet recommended supplementing green beans with the regular dog food. It seemed to reduce the issue.

Ah, ok That would be easy enough to try - is that canned or fresh, or cooked fresh?

We used generic (FRY'S/KROGER) canned green beans 'with no salt added'. I suppose fresh green beans would work just as well.

Immediately watering the spot is all that ever has worked for me.

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Originally posted by Dzozer:

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Originally posted by az4783054:
Out vet recommended supplementing green beans with the regular dog food. It seemed to reduce the issue.

Ah, ok That would be easy enough to try - is that canned or fresh, or cooked fresh?

I gave my lab canned beans to help with weight at the vet's suggestion. Just open the can drain and rinse and add to his bowl with food. My lab was 100#'s so I would give him half a can in the morning and a half in the evening with his food.

No idea if it will help with the grass though.

The pup burned the grass when she was on a grain free diet. Once her diet was changed to a more traditional one, the grass stopped getting scorched.

Could be something to consider.

My solution? 9 acres and not caring about where they go, lol. Obviously not an easy or inexpensive fix.

But honestly, for some reason my 2 current Great Danes don't do much damage - the puppy did early on when he went over and over again in the same spot, but now they run all over and it doesn't seem to burn at all. They are on Iams for what that's worth.

We did have a Boxer that you would think pissed flames, because it would be brown in less than a day. Never figured out how to stop it but tried (and succeeded, more or less) to get him to go in one area of the yard.

A Malamute will eat every green bean in your garden if given the opportunity. You have no need to test this, as it's been proven here.

I have no idea of the impact on the yard, but the dog was perfectly happy with that added to her diet.

The brown spots (dead grass) is from the salt in the urine. Females tend to be worse because they don't spread the scent.

Best thing is gypsum. Agricultural gypsum is the easiest to spread out because it's granular, not a powder (the powder version is also used to line the infield of a baseball diamond).

Spread it liberally onto your grass (regardless of what type) and water the grass.

What the gypsum does is leach away salts from the grass preventing it from dying. It also helps the soil (especially if your soil has a high clay content - it'll break up the clay). The powder version is pretty cheap, you'll just have a whiter lawn until the gypsum is watered in.

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Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
The brown spots (dead grass) is from the salt in the urine. Females tend to be worse because they don't spread the scent.

I had always heard that (about females), but we have two females and one male and never had any burn spots. Perhaps the hardy bluegrass in the AZ weather is the reason (grass already conditioned to harsh environment). The only dead grass spots/areas we get is when the grubs are active.

Thanks all - I am going to try some of these suggestions.

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Originally posted by henryaz:

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
The brown spots (dead grass) is from the salt in the urine. Females tend to be worse because they don't spread the scent.

I had always heard that (about females), but we have two females and one male and never had any burn spots. Perhaps the hardy bluegrass in the AZ weather is the reason (grass already conditioned to harsh environment). The only dead grass spots/areas we get is when the grubs are active.

The sandy soil in your location.

The soils there allows the water (and in turn, the salty pee) to flow through faster. In a denser soils, the water doesn't flow through as fast and hence, the grass picks up the salt in higher concentrations.

Here's another trick for all you rose gardeners - banana peels (two bananas worth) turned around the base of the bush will, systemically, protect the bush from pests (like aphids and such).

Our solution was to have a “dog yard” separate from the people yard. Ours is grass and hardscape, theirs is DG. They walk through ours on the way to theirs, and after they do their business in theirs they are sometimes allowed to run around and play grab ass on the lawn, but they don’t have free access to it.