Brown burnt patches on lawns are a regular part of owning both a dog and a lawn for many of us. It can be unsightly and a nuisance for those of us who love our lawns and gardens, so what then can be done to help alleviate or lessen the problem of dog urine burning lawns?
Why There Is A Problem With Dog Urine And Lawns
The high protein carnivorous diets of dogs can result in excess protein being converted to Nitrogen, this Nitrogen which is then deposited onto a lawn by the dog can result in the burnt patches we are all aware of. Many dogs also in our modern age are not getting the exercise they require daily to help burn off the high levels of protein in their diets, thus often worsening the problem when they urinate on our lawns.
Female or Male Dogs
The blame is quite often placed squarely on female dogs being the primary culprit of dog urine leaving brown burn marks in our lawns, and this is actually true. The reason why female dogs urine burns our lawns should be right before our eyes, the female dog will squat anywhere on the lawn when it urinates, whereas the male dog will lift its leg on vertical surfaces such as fences, garden walls, posts etc, and if we actually had lawn growing near those vertical surfaces where the male dog lifts its leg, then we should see there too that the lawn is in rather bad shape.
Better Diet
A family I know who in recent years added to their family with a little puppy soon found that their masterpiece pride and joy Santa Ana lawn was quickly covered in little brown burnt patches everywhere. The owners tried a couple of different popular options to eliminate the problem, without any success, and so they learned to live with it as part and parcel of dog ownership.
After a few years had passed, and after a visit to a vet’s office for another small matter, the problem of the lawn burn was bought up with the vet at the same time. The vet recommended a better quality of dog food (which the vet sold) may possibly be an option to help, and so this was tried, and success was achieved, there were no more burn marks on their lawn ever again. I can’t comment on the exercise regimen of the dog in question, though in this case the improved diet helped to eliminate this problem tremendously.
This particular case proved that the modern diet which many of us feed to our dogs, may not necessarily be the best for them, whereas better quality foods can sometimes eliminate at least the problem of dogs urine burning our lawns. A better variety of fresh foods can be added to our pet’s diet in many different ways, and there are plenty of resources online which can teach us the safe and unsafe foods for dogs.
Regular Exercise
All dogs need regular exercise, and they all need to go out for walks for their health and wellbeing and to ensure they are not becoming too overcome in their lives with absolute boredom should they be left at home and never go out. All dogs need daily walks.
Regular exercise will also help the dog to burn the protein from its diet, which will then naturally lessen the nitrogen levels in the dog’s waste. This in turn ensures that the urine of the dog is less potent, thereby reducing the severity of lawn burn from dogs urine.
My Own Dog And Lawn Story
This will be but a simple story, because there’s really nothing to tell, which is a good thing in this particular topic. I’ve had my female dog for 10 years, and her number one spot to go mornings and night, every single day, is on our lawn.
How many ugly brown or yellow wee spots over all these years has my front lawn endured? After being urinated on twice to four times per day over those years by a female dog?
Not a single one.
Never. Not one spot.
So what’s the secret? Is there any secret ingredient I buy to achieve this feat?
Nope. Nothing. Because there has never once been a single problem.
I feed my dog with fresh dog food, and biscuits (often but not always grain free), and a few leftovers on most but not all days. She gets lots of water, as much as she needs, though she is spoiled on this front with filtered water from a Berkey water filter, and with fluoride removed too.
She gets a walk every single weekday, and two walks a day on weekends, and she is very active on those walks with lots of running and playing with her ball.
And that’s really all there is to my great big secret of having a female dog, and a lawn used by her as a toilet twice a day (and more) over many years… and never a single instance of dog urine burning my lawn.
Good food, good water, lots of exercise. There’s really nothing else to add.
Another Story
I knew a family for several years whose new female dog also urinated every day on their back lawn. And that lawn was permanently covered in those awful yellow / brown wee spots everywhere, and there was a lot of them.
Eventually at a vet’s visit they asked for some advice, and that given advice was in regard to changing the dog’s diet with a better food source. They followed that advice, and the problem was solved instantly and permanently, with never a single burnt spot on their lawn from dog urine ever again.
Feeding our dogs with a better quality food won’t cost that much extra, the dog will be much happier with the better food, in better overall health and contentment, and we may just rid ourselves permanently of those ugly yellow spots on our lawns.
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