Dog urine frequently causes brown spots on the lawn.
Keeping a lawn green and pristine when dogs use the grass for pottying creates a challenge. Typically, the problem arises from your own dog; however, loose dogs and inconsiderate neighbors who are themselves dog owners (and dog walkers) may contribute to the problem. Attacking the issue with a variety of methods -- and the methods indeed vary widely -- provides you with the best chance to keep that green yard free from ugly brown urine spots.
Instructions
1. Contact animal control about your local leash laws and report the dogs or owners, if you know where the dogs live. Contact the owners of loose dogs, Authorities at Texas A&M University suggest that, if you know the dog owners, advise them of leash laws and ask them to contain their pets. Consider asking animal control to put up a trap to catch strange dogs, as they present a danger to your yard, other pets and possibly children.
2. Buy, create or modify signs for your yard.
Explain the damage to your yard and ask neighbors who walk their dogs, or allow them to run loose, to keep them off your yard. Place in your yard a purchased sign -- or make the sign yourself and post it -- asking people to keep their dogs off your property. Take pictures or videos of neighbors who do not comply, as well as photos of loose dogs -- and report to animal control or the police if necessary.
3. Put up fencing to prevent dogs from using your property as potty territory -- not just to help prevent urine spots and but to guard against the potential spread of worms and disease to your own pets. Resist buying the products that claim to keep dogs away, as the minimal effectiveness rarely justifies the cost factor.
4. Put a motion detector sprinkler system to help keep unwanted animals off your lawn, suggests Texas A&M University.
5. Put a collar and a leash on your dog and walk it to potty, taking it to public areas where it does not damage your yard or any neighbors'.
6. Go outside with your dog into the yard and immediately hose or pour water over the area where it urinates to help dilute and lessen the risk of it burning your lawn.
7. Confine your dog to a kennel run or fenced area, or train your dog to use a special area, with special ground covering, such as pea gravel, concrete, artificial turf, mulch, sand or easily removed material, including wheat straw and wood shavings.
8. Fake fire hydrants make creative marking posts.
Provide marking posts with gravel, stone or other surrounding material to help get male dogs to urinate in an area other than the lawn.
9. Plant grass that provides some resistance to urine burns, such as alkali grass, suggests Zac Reicher, Purdue University associate professor. Other options for burn-resistant grass include Bermuda grass and Kentucky bluegrass.
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