Question
grass type-mud    problems- 3 dogs   ideas for a better looking area.  without getting rid of dogs           thanks

Answer
Hi Marcia Glasgow,

About Dogs and Mud, bare lawn areas:

The grass cannot grow where there has been lots of dog urination.

Please DO NOT punish a Dog for being a Dog! It will not accomlish anything positive.

 Dog urine is a mild fertilizer with a nitrogen source as a SALT called UREA. The burning (hypertonic effects) of foliage damage is typically widespread and random in nature, as dogs rarely will choose a favorite spot. If you are able to simply hose down the areas before the urea can burn the grass foliage or have its concentrated effects in the top soil, it is actually a good fertilizer and if the rest of the yard is well fertilized, you will not see any negative effects or spotting.

 If the dog is kept away from a urine damaged area, time, rain and watering will fix it as all the microbes in the root-zone work to bio-degrade the urine/salts and re-establish a normal soil ecology.

Otherwise, there are no urea-canceling chemicals you can use that I know of.  There are sprays you can find at pet centers which supposedly attract dogs to a specific area so spottings due to salting effects are less of a problem. Some people have good results training especially the younger dogs to use certain areas to relieve themselves.

 Some people believe they can add herbs, baking soda and other chemicals to their pet's drinking water to help with lawn spotting. Please Do NOT add anything to your pet's drinking water unless such action is under a veterinarian's supervision! Adding chemicals to the water will NOT affect urea production by the animal's kidneys and may in fact cause an illness or toxic condition for your pet.

  If the dog persistently urinates in a small area, the soil can become irreversibly too salty for almost any plants or grasses to grow. With this you will have to under till the top soil or, better still, replace it with fresh top soil or potting soil/compost (cheap and available in bagged form at many garden and department stores).

So encourage or train your dog to go where you prefer with attractant sprays and rewards (you can try marking off a lawn area, and make your dog realize this is the place to go if he wants a T-bone steak!). Otherwise, make an effort to keep the all lawn spots and most often used areas immediately flushed with water are the best remedies for your lawn spotting problem.


 Although there are NO PET-PROOF GRASSES available, some grasses are considerably better than others for a dog's domain. The best lawns for dogs are those grasses that spread by either stolons or rhizomes (usually these are for warm climates). In southern climates, Improved HYBRID BERMUDA Grass cultivars,(example: "Savannah"), are excellent choices for dog lawns. Aggressive lateral growth habit during the warmer months of the year will help to heal damaged areas. During the early Fall, you may consider over seeding these lawns with  perennial ryegrasses (Lolium specie) for improved durability during the cooler months.  Tall Fescues are also more resistant to hypertonic effects than other grasses.  Tall Fescue can be grown in all parts of the USA. Mixing Bermuda with Fescue/Rye may also be a compromise for dog spotting in Northern States; the Bermuda will become blanched and dormant in the cold weather, while the Fescue or Rye will stay green.  Remember these grasses are not absolutely urea resistant...just more so than other grass choices and may be worth a try for you.

 Confining a large dog to a kennel run to keep it off the lawn is another way to prevent lawn spotting; this, however, is a sad choice and one which may give you a spot free lawn but a very bored and unhappy dog.

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With several dogs and all the problems they can cause to get a lawn area estabilshed, it may prove impossible.  To keep the mud situation under better control, you can spread straw or hay about and you can also find such things as cedar or pine chips at the garden center or wherever mulching materials are sold.  You can also excavate-away several inches of top-soil, lay down a plastic weed-bairrier material fabric and cover the area with pea-gravel or crushed rocks/shells.  These are way to keep the area 'kennel-ized' and have less of a problem with mud.  Some of these materials will have to be replaced every so often.

About Weed-Barrier (To cover bare soil areas):
http://www.growers-supply-co.com/dewitt.htm
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I Hope this has answered your question(s)!

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http://hometown.aol.com/eilatlog/lawnol.html

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