Your Pets and Your Lawn: Challenging the Yellow Spots of Spring
By Mary Lou Aurell
The snow is gone and I can see my grass again, resplendent with yellow spots. I can’t believe Buddy urinated so much.
Can we call it “pee”? It’s seems more doglike.
I understand again why people walk their dogs away from their yards, or create a special pee-pee place for them. A small grassy area or a dirt or graveled spot will do. You’ll have to keep it clean and walk your dog on a leash to its potty until it’s trained, with praise and treats, of course.
My common sense does not kick in when Buddy needs to go. I just open the door and he’s off to create his many interesting pee-pee spots. Some of these are “artistic,” as he works on a grassy palate. Some are round and create a walkway to the gazebo, much like those paving stones do. Amazing … but there are so many of them.
Other spots are large and almost perfectly oval, covering a disconcertingly large area close to the front door where he only wandered a tiny bit in very cold weather. Then there is the circle he makes around the small lilac bushes.
I sometimes find empty areas in the perennial beds. No buds, only ominous spots where his urea did in those tiny beginnings. Well, they needed to be thinned.
Landscapers and gardeners suggest fences or other decorative barriers around flower beds and fragile trees. But in northern Minnesota deep snow can cover most of these and Buddy has his way.
Deer also create yellow spots. Like female and some male dogs, they squat. Squatters are the hardest on grass.
Now it’s what to do with Buddy’s artistry, especially when your house is for sale and prospective buyers may wonder where else he peed.
Sheila Hunter, master gardener and administrative secretary at the Itasca County Extension Office, makes it sound simple: “Just wash down those spots and the green grass should return quickly,” she says.
It’s important to reach the root zone, Hunter emphasizes. That could mean a lot of water. How long you should wash down the yellow area depends on the soil and where the spots are. Sandy soil absorbs water more quickly than clay soil. If the spots are in a low area, water will collect on them so they come back faster. Of course, the reverse is true of spots on a knoll.
Don’t you wonder why the melting snow didn’t make dog and deer spots disappear? Not enough water, I guess.
In the spring, summer and fall you will have to keep that hose handy so you can water down the new areas in your lawn where your dog might kill the grass.
Bloomer’s Garden Center & Landscaping, Inc. in Grand Rapids has a product that contains grass seed and special mulch to spread on yellow spots. Their use also requires a lot of water, Susan Larson says. There are others on About.com who suggest the same process.
And if you want to keep the deer off your lawn, Bloomer’s sells a liquid fence that keeps them away.
Some may use another solution: giving dogs food additives or supplements to neutralize the acid in their urine, according to Krista Mifflin in her article, “Burn Baby Burn! Grass Burns from Dog Urine."
Bad idea! Mifflin warns that altering your dog’s ph level can be dangerous. “It’s a far better idea to treat the grass, rather than the dog.”
Columnist, David Beaulieu, in “8 Tips for Landscaping with Dogs”, writes about folks who may try to change their dog’s diet, perhaps mixing tomato juice into dog food. As far as he knows, “the evidence that this strategy works is merely anecdotal.”
Since Beaulieu feels that dogs and lawns don’t mix, he offers what may be a more drastic way to avoid those yellow spots: change your grassy areas to a “hardscape” that may involve crushed stone. It ends lawn care.
But if you can’t bear loosing your green carpet, create a clover lawn, he says. “You’ll appreciate the fact that clover doesn’t stain the way grass does after being subjected to dog urine.”
Can’t you see all those bunnies eating clover in your yard with your dog nearby?
Myself, I’ll stick with my two acres of grass … and be vigilant, with hose in hand. I may not have a life, as Beaulieu notes, but I’ll have a decent lawn and can still ride that big old John Deere!
Animal Credits: The dog above, standing near his spot is Windsor. The dog gazing out the sliding glass door is Buddy.
READER RESPONSES:
"Cute article but what about those brown piles....they are worse then the yellow spots especially when raking!!! Ah, happy spring!" - Judy Hoopman
The snow is gone and I can see my grass again, resplendent with yellow spots. I can’t believe Buddy urinated so much.
Can we call it “pee”? It’s seems more doglike.
I understand again why people walk their dogs away from their yards, or create a special pee-pee place for them. A small grassy area or a dirt or graveled spot will do. You’ll have to keep it clean and walk your dog on a leash to its potty until it’s trained, with praise and treats, of course.
My common sense does not kick in when Buddy needs to go. I just open the door and he’s off to create his many interesting pee-pee spots. Some of these are “artistic,” as he works on a grassy palate. Some are round and create a walkway to the gazebo, much like those paving stones do. Amazing … but there are so many of them.
Other spots are large and almost perfectly oval, covering a disconcertingly large area close to the front door where he only wandered a tiny bit in very cold weather. Then there is the circle he makes around the small lilac bushes.
I sometimes find empty areas in the perennial beds. No buds, only ominous spots where his urea did in those tiny beginnings. Well, they needed to be thinned.
Landscapers and gardeners suggest fences or other decorative barriers around flower beds and fragile trees. But in northern Minnesota deep snow can cover most of these and Buddy has his way.
Deer also create yellow spots. Like female and some male dogs, they squat. Squatters are the hardest on grass.
Now it’s what to do with Buddy’s artistry, especially when your house is for sale and prospective buyers may wonder where else he peed.
Sheila Hunter, master gardener and administrative secretary at the Itasca County Extension Office, makes it sound simple: “Just wash down those spots and the green grass should return quickly,” she says.
It’s important to reach the root zone, Hunter emphasizes. That could mean a lot of water. How long you should wash down the yellow area depends on the soil and where the spots are. Sandy soil absorbs water more quickly than clay soil. If the spots are in a low area, water will collect on them so they come back faster. Of course, the reverse is true of spots on a knoll.
Don’t you wonder why the melting snow didn’t make dog and deer spots disappear? Not enough water, I guess.
In the spring, summer and fall you will have to keep that hose handy so you can water down the new areas in your lawn where your dog might kill the grass.
Bloomer’s Garden Center & Landscaping, Inc. in Grand Rapids has a product that contains grass seed and special mulch to spread on yellow spots. Their use also requires a lot of water, Susan Larson says. There are others on About.com who suggest the same process.
And if you want to keep the deer off your lawn, Bloomer’s sells a liquid fence that keeps them away.
Some may use another solution: giving dogs food additives or supplements to neutralize the acid in their urine, according to Krista Mifflin in her article, “Burn Baby Burn! Grass Burns from Dog Urine."
Bad idea! Mifflin warns that altering your dog’s ph level can be dangerous. “It’s a far better idea to treat the grass, rather than the dog.”
Columnist, David Beaulieu, in “8 Tips for Landscaping with Dogs”, writes about folks who may try to change their dog’s diet, perhaps mixing tomato juice into dog food. As far as he knows, “the evidence that this strategy works is merely anecdotal.”
Since Beaulieu feels that dogs and lawns don’t mix, he offers what may be a more drastic way to avoid those yellow spots: change your grassy areas to a “hardscape” that may involve crushed stone. It ends lawn care.
But if you can’t bear loosing your green carpet, create a clover lawn, he says. “You’ll appreciate the fact that clover doesn’t stain the way grass does after being subjected to dog urine.”Can’t you see all those bunnies eating clover in your yard with your dog nearby?
Myself, I’ll stick with my two acres of grass … and be vigilant, with hose in hand. I may not have a life, as Beaulieu notes, but I’ll have a decent lawn and can still ride that big old John Deere!
Animal Credits: The dog above, standing near his spot is Windsor. The dog gazing out the sliding glass door is Buddy.
READER RESPONSES:
"Cute article but what about those brown piles....they are worse then the yellow spots especially when raking!!! Ah, happy spring!" - Judy Hoopman
posted by Katie Carter at
9:50 AM
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