Train your dog to eliminate in one area. Some products, such as the Simple Solution Pee Post, are impregnated with pheromones to encourage your dog to pee on or near them. Designating an area for your dog to eliminate in will save the remainder of your yard.
Feed your dog a dietary supplement. Certain dietary supplements, such as Green-UM and Drs. Fosters and Smith “Lawn Guard,” bind with the nitrogen in the urine, making it less harmful to your lawn.
The effects of dog urine on your lawn are similar that of a nitrogen-rich liquid fertilizer. A small amount of fertilizer makes your yard healthy, but too much will kill your lawn. To prevent burns, you need to reduce the amount of nitrogen that comes into contact with your grass.
Spray areas where your dog urinates with water. Pouring water on the area after your dog urinates will help to dilute the urine and lessen the effects of the nitrogen on your lawn.
Replant affected areas with a more urine-resistant grass. Ryegrass and Fescue are the most urine-resistant type of grass, while Kentucky Bluegrass and Bermuda are the most sensitive.
Is There a Way to Lower Nitrogen Levels in My Dog’s Pee?
The pet product industry has caught wind of this shared desire for less nitrogen from their pet, and a few products have come out on the market. One of the more popular items are called Dog Rocks – actual Australian rocks that are sold for the sole purpose of lowering the nitrogen in your dog’s pee, thus avoiding those nasty burnt patches that are assumed to be the result of that.
How does it work? The idea behind this is that the rocks are paramagnetic (meaning slightly magnetic) – and will attract and absorb certain impurities such as tin, ammonia and nitrates (the water soluble form of nitrogen) that is typically found in tap water. While arguably most if not all rocks have some level of paramagnetism, Dog Rocks say they are “used by over a million dog owners worldwide to help stop pet urine from burning their grass.”
Here’s where their pseudoscience gets a little hairy. To start, the average level of nitrates in our drinking water is relatively low. The Environmental Protection Agency moderates a maximum nitrate capacity of 10mg/Liter. Since a liter of water weighs 1,000,000 milligrams, we are really talking a mere 0.001% of your tap water could contain nitrates. Secondly, as discussed earlier, the majority of nitrogen found in urine comes from metabolizing protein, a natural process that cannot and should not be avoided.
So rocks might not be the answer, but there could be a way to slightly lower the amount of nitrogen that your dog is outputting. You may think to have your dog drink more water in order to dilute the nitrogen levels, but with your dog’s urine already being 95% water, I doubt it would have that much of an effect. Your best bet is to look into a new pet food brand that has a lower protein content – less protein means less nitrogen produced. You may want to talk it over with your vet first, but this could be an appropriate choice especially if your dog’s has a generally low activity level.
What is nitrogen and why is it in dog pee?
Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plants, animals, and humans. Although the air we breathe is around 78% nitrogen, the gas form is hard for us (and your dog) to utilize in the body. Instead, we use a compound version of nitrogen that be obtained when ingesting protein.
In most if not all mammals, when protein is consumed (from meat, dairy, etc.), it is broken down into amino acids that will support any number of systems such as Muscular, Integumentary (skin), Cardiovascular, as well as hair and nail growth. The process produces the byproduct ammonia, which then forms with carbon dioxide to produce urea, a nitrogenous compound. The remaining nitrogen is eventually filtered out through the kidneys and discharged within the urine.
Urine (whether human or canine) contains about 95% water while just 5% contains added solutes that include nitrogen – as well as phosphorous, and potassium. Although the ratios can differ due to the diet and size of the animal, the general chemical structure is quite similar to what you’d find in store-bought fertilizer.
So why is nitrogen in fertilizer good and nitrogen in urine is supposedly bad? The idea is when it comes to gardening, whenever you have too much of something, it can cause a depletion in something else. So if too much nitrogen in the soil, it can cause other vital minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium to decrease.
Unhappy dog owners blame their pup for dispensing heavily concentrated nitrogen in one area as oppose to fertilizer which can be evenly spread in a controlled fashion.
What if you could get your soil to properly distribute, and utilize your dog’s urine? In our opinion, one of the the best ways to avoid yellow spots is to maintain a healthy and thriving lawn that can handle the amount of pee your pup puts out on a daily basis. Learn how in our article, 5 Steps to Maintain a Healthy Lawn That Can Withstand Your Dog’s Urine.
Your Pee is Organic Nitrogen Fertilizer!!! 🙂 No more dog pee burn spots on the lawn 😉
If you have a dog, then chances are you also have brown spots on your lawn. This happens because dog urine is rich in nitrogen, which is known to kill grass when concentrated amounts collect over time.
The effects of dog urine on your lawn are similar that of a nitrogen-rich liquid fertilizer. A small amount of fertilizer makes your yard healthy, but too much will kill your lawn. To prevent burns, you need to reduce the amount of nitrogen that comes into contact with your grass.
Fertilize your lawn less, or not at all, in areas where your dog urinates. Fertilized lawns may already have as much nitrogen as they can handle. Even a small amount of nitrogen in dog urine may be all that is needed to burn the lawn.
Spray areas where your dog urinates with water. Pouring water on the area after your dog urinates will help to dilute the urine and lessen the effects of the nitrogen on your lawn.
Encourage your dog to drink more water. The more your dog drinks, the less nitrogen will be concentrated in the urine and the less damaging it will be to your lawn. It will also be healthier for your dog as well.
Replant affected areas with a more urine-resistant grass. Ryegrass and Fescue are the most urine-resistant type of grass, while Kentucky Bluegrass and Bermuda are the most sensitive.
Feed your dog a dietary supplement. Certain dietary supplements, such as Green-UM and Drs. Fosters and Smith “Lawn Guard,” bind with the nitrogen in the urine, making it less harmful to your lawn.
Train your dog to eliminate in one area. Some products, such as the Simple Solution Pee Post, are impregnated with pheromones to encourage your dog to pee on or near them. Designating an area for your dog to eliminate in will save the remainder of your yard.
Apply a lawn repair treatment. Some treatments, such as Dogonit Lawn Repair Treatment, contain organic enzymes with soil cleansers to flush the salts from the root zone.
