Dogs & grass

[Anonymous]

We are closing on a house in DC has a lovely green lawn, not huge maybe 40’ x 40’. We have 2 dogs (7 and 8 years old) and have never lived in a home with grass before. In California, it was all native plantings and gravel. In our current house, it is native ground cover. So the dogs are used to being in a yard that they can pee in. To be clear, they are walked 2-3x a day, but they are getting to the point where they pee more, and sometimes need to go out in the middle of the night.

We’re excited to have a fenced in yard for the dogs to enjoy, I just hate those yellow pee circles on green grass. Aside from the obvious - training the dogs not to pee on the grass, or fencing it off, are there natural solutions that I can apply to grass to keep it from browning, or supplements I can feed my dogs to keep their pee from being acidic that anyone has personally had success with? I cross posted in the lawn forum.

Thanks for any tips or feedback

[Anonymous]

Not sure, but our yard isn't a whole lot larger and our dog pees there- no yellow spots to date.

[Anonymous]

For our first dog, the supplement Nutri-Vet Grass Guard Max was very effective at eliminating yellow spots in the grass. It works pretty well for our second dog too, but we do occasionally get yellow spots. Not many, though, and they recover.

From the reviews, it seems to be hit-or-miss whether it will work for your dogs.

[Anonymous]

Your lawn will get yellow circles if the dogs continually go into the same spot, so I would encourage your dogs to pee on tree trunks, or public areas outside of your lawn square. Or sacrifice one out of the way spot in your yard for their needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For our first dog, the supplement Nutri-Vet Grass Guard Max was very effective at eliminating yellow spots in the grass. It works pretty well for our second dog too, but we do occasionally get yellow spots. Not many, though, and they recover.

From the reviews, it seems to be hit-or-miss whether it will work for your dogs.

thank you, will give it a try!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure, but our yard isn't a whole lot larger and our dog pees there- no yellow spots to date.

The only reason this is on my radar is because we rented an Airbnb last summer for a month with the dogs. There was only a small patch of grass in the yard, maybe 10 x 5, and the dogs rarely were in that area unsupervised, by the end of our visit, there were 5 yellow pee spots. It was mortifying and thankfully, we were able to call the owners landscaper and have it repaired. So I guess my dogs have some potent pee. Or maybe it was a particular type of grass? That was California. Hopefully DC grass is heartier!

[Anonymous]

Try dog rocks in their water bowls. Works for us.

https://www.chewy.com/dog-rocks-lawn-burn-patch/dp/48201?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=16078947249&utm_content=Dog%20Rocks&utm_term=&gclid=CjwKCAjwkYGVBhArEiwA4sZLuFtsa9NnmPkCIR_-9gH2phjL9pUsqUOm25W1zMfMCJsPsYrxBxTunxoCi7AQAvD_BwE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try dog rocks in their water bowls. Works for us.

https://www.chewy.com/dog-rocks-lawn-burn-patch/dp/48201?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=16078947249&utm_content=Dog%20Rocks&utm_term=&gclid=CjwKCAjwkYGVBhArEiwA4sZLuFtsa9NnmPkCIR_-9gH2phjL9pUsqUOm25W1zMfMCJsPsYrxBxTunxoCi7AQAvD_BwE

ooh! thank you!

[Anonymous]

I've never had this issue in my yard and I have 3 dogs. They seem to pee all over though, not in the same place repeatedly. I wouldn't worry until it's an issue.

[Anonymous]

I have seen the supplements so I knew of this happening but I’ve had dogs my whole life and never had one of them leave yellow spots in our grass so it might be the type of grass.

[Anonymous]

Here’s a link with several suggestions. Easiest is to simply water over the pee spot immediately to dilute the urine and nitrogen content. Long term a very good path to choose is to switch your lawn over to clover - it’s drought resistant, fixes nitrogen so requires no fertilizer and stands up to dog pee, it grows only to a set length so requires less mowing, it’s soft and lovely and in the spring it feeds all the good pollinators we want to encourage. Most lawns were cloverlawn before the post WW chemical industry got us all hooked on labor intensive and chemical intensive and water intensive lawns to redirect the industry. If you’re concerned with the environment, you should really check into cloverlawn.

https://www.thesprucepets.com/dog-urine-brown-spots-on-grass-1118287