When puppies are finally potty trained, dog owners believe they have struck gold. It’s wonderful to see dogs exercising outside. But, sadly, the joy is frequently fleeting because dog owners quickly discover dog’s urine is causing unsightly yellow patches to appear on the lawn.
Home pets, particularly dogs or even the neighbor’s male dogs, tend to mark the same area and mostly upright objects like trees, posts, etc. A female dog tends to squat, although males can also do, yet the bitches urine is more acidic, and the urine will harm your lawn more, resulting in dead spots and yellow grass because of the acidity.
Fortunately, there is a dog urine neutralizer, and grass solution you can use, yet it could be too late to get some from the store. Although grass can regrow, if you don’t have any on hand, you might need to remove the affected area and replant grass seed as the only fix you can find.
In our guide, you can learn how to neutralize dog urine on grass. By the end, you’ll know everything you can do to prevent browning grass, and if you’re pressed for time, you’ll learn how to use the quickest home dog pee-on grass neutralizer to fix dog urine spots as they happen. (Learn How To Tell If A Lawn Mower Spark Plug Is Bad)
Will Dog Pee Kill Grass?
Dogs have a high nitrogen concentration in their urine because they are obligate carnivores and eat only meat. As a result, the grass “burns” from what is similar to an intense application of nitrogen fertilizer.
Dog urine has high levels of nitrogen and related salts. As a result, when puppies pee on the lawn, a lot of it is left over to collect, sit, and be absorbed by the grass, leading to brown spots.
These high nitrogen levels harm or even kill turf, which is why it turns brown in the affected areas and causes some lawn repair treatments to fix dead patches or lawn damage. Here are some top ways to stop a dog’s urine from causing lawn burn or prolonged damage.
Rapid Lawn Care To Prevent Pet Urine Damage
- Water the grass after a dog has urinated on it. If your dog—or a neighbor’s dog leaves a urine spot on a portion of your lawn, you can lessen the damage by watering the affected area with fresh water.
- Use a hose or a big watering can spray copious amounts of water over the spot where the dog urinated.
- You don’t need to worry about over-watering the small grass area if your lawn is established.
- This will help to wash the urine off the lawn grass and dilute the pee’s concentrated acid.
- The acid can be further neutralized by adding baking soda.
- A gallon of water and two tablespoons of baking soda are required for this procedure.
- Pour the sodium bicarbonate mixture over the spot where the animal has urinated.
- Since the ammonia and nitrogen in dog urine are neutralized by baking soda, the grass won’t turn brown and leave a damaged area.
- The added benefit of baking soda is that it is safe for animals. Therefore, if they walk through the baking soda-soaked grass, it won’t harm your dog, and you can find fresh grass growth and all your lawn green.
Tips For Stopping Dog’s Urine Causing Dead Grass
Both male and female dogs frequently urinate on the grass damaging the lawn. However, female dogs pose a greater threat to lawn grass because of their more concentrated urine. If you want to avoid having brown dog urine stains and dead grass, teach your dog to only urinate in designated spots.
Your dog can be trained to relieve themselves in set areas. Dogs urinate on pee posts since they come pheromone-treated and designed to catch their attention. If you have a space covered in stones or mulch, teach your dog to go there so the acid won’t harm the materials.
If your neighbor’s dog wanders onto your home lawns, speak with them and ask them to keep their dog off your lawn; if this doesn’t work, you might need to put up a fence to keep them off your property. Choose your type of grass carefully as ryegrass, and tall fescue grass grow slightly urine resistant, and Kentucky Bluegrass is sensitive. (Read Can Dogs Have Oat Milk)
Only Female Dogs Tend To Cause Dog Urine Spots?
Female dogs tend to squat to urinate, leaving smaller but more densely concentrated urine spots on the grass. Even though male dogs roam and urinate along the way, marking trees and shrubs rather than returning to the same lawn areas, they can still produce spots.
Young and older males frequently squat rather than lift their legs to urinate, leaving a high urine concentration in the same areas.
Lawn Burn and Brown Spots Are From Alkaline Dog Urine?
Even though urine pH levels can affect the health of a lawn, does dog urine harm grass in other ways? For example, urine spots contain high levels of salts and nitrogen rather than any given pH level.
The lush green grass surrounding the urine spots typically grows slower than the surrounding lawn. This is because the outer circle receives less nitrogen, allowing it to grow new grass rather than causing lawn burn.
Can Food Supplements Be A Dog Pee On grass Neutralizer?
Dog owners see ads for a dog urine neutralizer, and grass stains can be treated, yet pet owners wish there were something to do in advance. Product displays show dog food, dietary supplements added to the dog’s food and more that are supposed to prevent dog spotting by adapting your dog’s diet.
Here, all they do is increase a dog’s water intake or lower your dog’s urine alkaline levels. Such products can harm your dog’s health, causing kidney disease before it cures dog urine spots.
Check with a vet first if any dog owner wishes to take this path.
Why Does Dog Pee Kill Grass?
Too much nitrogen in dog urine causes many of the issues. Many fertilizers have low nitrogen concentrations, and some nitrogen is beneficial for preserving a green lawn. But excessive nitrogen causes grass to burn. Male dogs pee in multiple locations to mark their territory, whereas female dogs are typically squat in one spot.
Although dog poop-killing grass is a common issue, you can do a few things to stop those unsightly brown and yellow spots from dog-pee-killing grass.
Fix Dog Pee Dead Spots With Simple Products
Gypsum, dish soap, baking soda, and other unrelated household products won’t work and may even make your yard’s yellow color lawn burn worse. Baking soda and gypsum both contain salts, which could exacerbate the problem.
Dishwashing detergent can also make water movement into the soil easier as it is a surfactant. The main element is water and plenty of it. Therefore, the salts and nitrogen may be diluted and percolated into the nearby soil if the area is heavily watered. (Read Is Plumeria Toxic To Dogs)
Walk Your Dog
You have control over the situation when you take your dog for a walk. For instance, by doing this, you can prevent her from urinating in the same spot again.
Training top use a pee spot
Training your dog to stay in one place can take time, but it will also protect your lawn. Consider building a pile of gravel or picking a secret spot on the lawn for the pee spot. Installing a pee pole with pheromones in your yard will also attract your dog.
Use Dog Rocks
Dog Rocks are mined rocks you put in your dog’s water bowl, advertised as having the ability to filter nitrates out of water. Removing nitrates decreases the amount in your dog’s urine, theoretically protecting your lawn.
Features:
- According to the manufacturer, they are safe for all pets, making them standard for multi-species households where dogs and cats share a water bowl.
- A chemical-free, natural product
- Simply wash the item, add the rock to your dog’s bowl, and fill it with at least two liters of water.
- According to the manufacturer, they last up to 10 months before they need to be replaced.
Use Healthy Dietary Supplements
If you spot commercial; products that advertise they stop lawn burn, avoid these and choose more natural options. You should give your dog a dietary supplement that maintains a healthy pH and nitrogen in the urine.
Probiotics, apple cider vinegar, cranberries, and other natural ingredients are found in these supplements to maintain your dog’s digestive system’s health and reduce the nitrogen content of your dog’s urine.
Tomato Juice, Apple Cider Vinegar, and Vitamin C
Another urban legend has it you can prevent lawn damage by adjusting the pH of the dog’s urine with tomato juice. The myth with this remedy holds that grass burns because dog urine is too acidic.
The theory holds that the “acidity of dog’s urine” can be reduced by adding foods like tomato juice, apple cider vinegar, and vitamin C to your dog’s diet. All of these solutions, like others, do not, however, address the real issue of high nitrogen concentrations.
We strongly advise against modifying your dog’s diet and health with unproven methods. It is ultimately not worth putting your dog through all this trouble because the pH of the dog’s urine does not kill the grass.
Conclusion
A dog can be an excellent addition to the family, but it can devastate your yard. Dog urine contains high amounts of nitrogen, which, when concentrated, upsets the pH balance of the soil and kills the grass.
Some people think that applying baking soda to these spots will cause the urine to dry up before it damages the ground, but the baking soda degrades the soil and grass more than it does. (Learn How To Keep Dogs From Digging Under Chain Link Fence)
However, some beneficial methods benefit both the lawn and the urine. The best way to deal with dog spots from larger dogs is to spray water on the area to dilute any salts.
Besides this, if you flood the area with water, it weakens any smells. A dog pees where another dog pees, but now there won’t be any scent to entice other dogs to pee in the same area.
