I am sure this question has been asked many times but. How can you keep the
Dog from making brown spots in the yard ?

I've just added this thread to my watch list...should be good

"Keith Corwell" wrote in message
...
I am sure this question has been asked many times but. How can you keep
the
Dog from making brown spots in the yard ?

"Keith Corwell" wrote in message
...
I am sure this question has been asked many times but. How can you keep
the
Dog from making brown spots in the yard ?





Water in the urine at least daily.

There is a great discussion on this at:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/p..._problems.html


--
Toni
South Florida USA
Zone 10

Keith Corwell wrote:
I am sure this question has been asked many times but. How can you keep the
Dog from making brown spots in the yard ?


Short of paving or Astroturf? Quick cleanup of land mines might help,
but dogs are going to do their thing- either learn to accept it or find
a home for it where the owners understand that they've got a live animal
in their care, not a toy they can turn on and off at their convenience.

P.S. I heard dogs chew and dig. You might want to be on the lookout for
that too.

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 07:13:15 -0500, "Keith Corwell"
wrote:

I am sure this question has been asked many times but. How can you keep the
Dog from making brown spots in the yard ?


I decided not to be a smartalic. Daily cleanup of solid waste and
hosing down (diluting) the area(s) with the hose. Best to train the
dog to a designated area of the yard to make cleanup easier.

In article , Phisherman
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 07:13:15 -0500, "Keith Corwell"
wrote:

I am sure this question has been asked many times but. How can you keep the
Dog from making brown spots in the yard ?

GARDEN MYTH: Dog urine makes brown spots in the lawn.

The Truth:

There are a number of lawn diseases caused by fungus or by overall poor
maintenance practices that results in dispersed circular dead patches
through a lawn. If a dog is present or visiting from the neighbors' yards,
dogs get blamed. But dogs are not the cause.

People who own dogs wouldn't even be able to have lawns if there was
justification for such blame. *In theory, extremely smelly amonia-ridden
urine will kill grass, but will also smell like an open sewer. Healthy
animals do not produce amonia in their urine. Amonia arises as a bacterial
waste product. If a dog has a bladder infection it produces more amonia,
but even then not enough to harm a lawn. A healthy animal produces pretty
much odorless urine & it will begin to break down naturally into plant
nutrients long before bacteria have a chance to build up their
disreputable population. And if a lawn is routinely watered, the urine is
too dilute to sustain an unhealthy bacterial population.

A study Dr. A.W. Allard, a Colorado veterinarian, found that pH levels in
dog urine had no harmful effect on lawns. None. Now no amount of science
will convince some people & in the past I¹ve even been flamed by people
absolutely convinced fire is a liquid & dog urine killed their grass, but
the science is the science.

For urine burns to occur required several unlikely factors. First, very
bad overall lawn-care was required to secure susceptibility, to prolonged
urine exposure due to lack of normal watering, & for the grass type to be
uniquely susceptible even under such poor conditions. Then the urine would
have to be unnaturally CONCENTRATED. Dr. Allard¹s tests with CONCENTRATED
dog urine found that Fescue & Ryegrass made good use of it as a
fertilizer, but bermuda grass & kentucky bluegrass if exposed to
CONCENTRATED dog urine for long enough duration would be nitrogen-burned.

Non-concentrated dog urine did not have this harmful effect; Dr. Allard's
study showed that DOG URINE IN NORMAL CONCENTRATIONS DID NOT HARM EVEN THE
MOST SENSITIVE GARSSES.

OVER cared for lawns may actually be stressed and unhealthy, setting up
turf for another exception: Occasinally the nitrogen content in dog urine
was able to burn a lawn that is already at risk due to excessive
applications of commercial fertilizers excessively high in nitrogen
content. Dehydrated crystaline urea is almost half nitrogen & is a major
ingredient in commercial fertilizers of all sorts; to load that onto the
lawn, then have the dog load on some more urea fresh from the fountain so
to speak, is definitely overdoing it.

Healthy lawns are encouraged to produce their own nitrogen assisted by
beneficial microbes, but unhealthy lawns are so chemicalized the microbe
population is low, artificially applied nitrogen application attempts to
make up the difference at the maximum edge of safe application, & for that
pitiful lawn one more squirt of liquid fertilizer (vis, dog urine) might
well burn a spot in what would already have been one ugly-ass maltreated
lawn.

Rather than get mad at the dog, the turf keeper should realize he's been
doing something very wrong. A healthier lawn would not only react to the
urine as a mild fertilizing agent not at all harmful, but the microbe
population would break down the nutrients long before harmful bacteria
could turn it to stinky amonia-pee.

The primary chemical component of fresh pee is urea. This is also a
component of blood and milk, & is in the diet of anyone who eats meat or
dairy products, so it is not in general harmful (perverts who drink pee
for thrills are not at any great risk of injuring themselves unless the
****er was sick or the pee left to "go bad"). You could safely drink your
own pee (or your seeing eye dog's pee) to get that last little way across
the desert & not hurt yourself so long as you drank it fresh.

Urea is manufactured by the body from amonia as a way to keep toxic amonia
from building up in the blood system. When expelled from the body, it
begins to break back down from bacteria, releasing amonia over time (it
takes two to four days for urea to break down into ammonia & carbon
dioxide if the urea becomes sufficiently concentrated for bacteria to
flourish suddenly). This break-down will not occur if the soil is
completely dry (& the urea dries out), or it is quite cold outside, or if
rainfall or watering is sufficent to dilute the urea so that it does not
invite that particular bacterial breakdown.

During a heatspell urea more quickly volatilizes into amonia, so if a dog
is peeing in the yard when summer weather is in the 90s, & peeing in the
exact same spot time & time again, it CONCEIVABLY could cause harm that
would not be likely any other time of the year. The same dog peeing all
over the lawn in Autumn is actually aiding the lawn's healthy growth, but
peeing in one spot & one spot only in hot weather on the most sensitive
bermuda grass that has already been over-fertilized, damage is possible
for such an already-unhealthy maltreated turf. In all ordinary conditions,
though, some other cause for dead spots in the turf will have to be
considered.

The waste product of urea decay last only a few hours then has evaporated,
though traces of ammonia salts might still build up over time if the same
darned spot is peed on repeatedly. So the problem generally has to be
ongoing to have any effect, i.e., continuous use of the same spot by dogs,
continuous temperature conditions, continous failure to water the area to
dilute nitrogen & ammonia concentrations, continuous poor lawn
maintenance, all coinciding in repeated brief exposures to the ammonia
component of old urine. And even then the actual culprit is really poor
mainteance or a fungus.
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden
people maintaining a free civil government." -Thomas Jefferson

Carefully review any contracts between the dog owner and dog. Revise them
so that the dog is purely a companion animal. That is to say, take away
all of its duties. zip-zoo

"Ralph" wrote in news:jvU1e.2433$FN4.1181
@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com:

I've just added this thread to my watch list...should be good

"Keith Corwell" wrote in message
...
I am sure this question has been asked many times but. How can you keep
the Dog from making brown spots in the yard ?

Now no amount of science will convince some people ...

I know that's true! But I've lived in this house since 1961, and have
always had a dog. A Brittany, then an Irish Setter, then another
Brittany, and now a third Brittany. (Yes, I'm biased.)

If dog urine or feces damaged lawns, I would have no lawn at all. But
I can not recall EVER having brown spots on my lawn.

Weeds, YES! Brown spots, NO.

When weather permits, I hose away the piles. I do nothing about
urine. I have not put a penny's worth of fertilizer on my lawn for at
least 20, perhaps 30, years, but I have to mow the damn thing every
week. Perhaps I have the dogs to thank, or blame, for that.

vince norris

"vincent p. norris" wrote in message
...

If dog urine or feces damaged lawns, I would have no lawn at all. But
I can not recall EVER having brown spots on my lawn.



Not everyones dogs are alike :-)

I have a very small rear lawn area that is potty zone to three dogs
totalling 493 lbs. That is equivalent to three adult humans using the lawn
as a toilet day after day year after year in an extremely hot and humid
climate.
I have significant lawn problems, but with daily diligence (immediate poo
pick-up and *daily* hosing in of urine, plus semi monthly detergent washing
plus lime applications) I am able to maintain it fairly well.


--
Toni
South Florida USA
Zone 10