Dogs are beloved family members and loving companions, but their potty habits can wreak havoc on lawns. Dog pee includes a great deal of soluble salts and hydrogen peroxide. Small amounts of urine can fertilize the affected grass, causing it to be more dangerous and more vigorous than the turf about it. Massive amounts of urine can cause brown patches of dead grass surrounded by a halo of lush, deep-green grass. Taking steps in spring to correct dog area problems will help keep your lawn looking uniformly healthy and green.
About Female Spots
Green dog places are circular patches of grass typically reaching 4 to 8 inches in diameter. When brown dog places look, they generally have a 3- to 6-inch circle of brown grass surrounded by a halo of deep-green grass extending about 6 to 12 inches in diameter. Dogs frequently make pit stops at the exact same place throughout winter. So dog spots typically become evident in early spring, once the grass comes from dormancy. Although puppy spots can arise in any type of grass, their harm is usually most severe in cool-season grasses, such as Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis), that is hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 9a and dangerous in certain locations. Warm-season grasses spread via rhizomes and stolons, which allow websites affected by even big dog spots to repair themselves with time. The warm-season varieties burmudagrass (Cynodon spp., USDA zones 7 through 10), some species of which can be invasive in certain places, zoysiagrass (Zoysia spp., USDA zones 6 through 9) and St. Augustinegrass (Stenotaphrum secundatum, USDA zones 8 through 10) hold up nicely to your dog’s potty habits. Keep an invasive grass variety mowed and confined to block it from spreading.
Rinse Them Away
Small, brown dog spots in grass are usually straightforward to fix when they look in spring. The University of Wisconsin Extension implies leaving places smaller than the size of the fist alone. The surrounding turfgrass must fill these spots rather quickly. Simply rub each affected area with water from a garden hose to help dilute the accumulated salts and revive turfgrass. Treat green dog areas with no browning in the middle by keeping your usual watering program to stop the salts from building up in the ground. Dry conditions often allow the salts to accumulate to the point at which they harm or kill grass.
Reseed the Areas
Larger brown dog spots in grass have to be overseeded. Spring is an perfect time to overseed since grass seeds germinate best when temperatures range from 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. With a seed mixture or a lawn-patch seed mix that matches the remainder of your property’s grass will keep the lawn uniform. Rake up as much of the dead grass as you can in each dog place website, and eliminate the best 1/2 to 1 inch of soil, taking care to not hurt the healthy turf surrounding each website. Heavily watering the affected areas for three times in a row helps to dilute the salts in the ground. Adhering to the instructions on the seed item’s tag, sprinkle the mixture over every dog spot’s entire location. Gently rake the seeds to the soil, taking care they do not go more than 1/2 inch deep. Water that the seeded areas thoroughly, irrigate them twice each day, keeping them moist but not too wet, until the new grass grows about 3 inches in height.
Increase Nitrogen
Feeding your lawn in early spring using a nitrogen fertilizer will help mask deep-green puppy spots. Each fertilizer has three numbers on its bundle tag. The numbers indicate the proportion of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium in the fertilizer. If your basement has established grass, then use a fertilizer that has a nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium proportion of 3-to-1-to-2, such as an 18-6-12 fertilizer, that is 18 percent nitrogen, 6 percent phosphorous and 12 percent potassium. Feed your lawn 1 pound of available nitrogen for every 1,000 square feet of growing space. If, for instance, you use an 18-6-12 fertilizer, then implement about 5 pounds of that fertilizer on every 1,000 square feet of turfgrass. Fertilizer manufacturers’ instructions vary. So carefully read and follow the instructions on your fertilizer’s label.
Prevent Dog Spots
Help prevent future dog spots by training your pooch to go potty in a particular lawn area, such as an out-of-the-way part of yard, a place mulched with wood or one or gravel with tall grass you never mow. Thoroughly rinsing grass with water immediately after your dog urinates helps dilute the number of salts and sulfur which reach the soil. A whole lot of myths exist about dog spots, such as people who suggest changing the pH level of a dog’s urine using nutritional supplements or dietary alterations. No evidence is that these steps work, however, and never add nutritional supplements or change your dog’s diet plan before you seek advice from your vet.