Dog damaged lawns
Now, penning a whole blog post on dog-damaged lawns would be suspicious, but there’s an interesting twist.
And yes, dogs, especially females, damage lawns when they pee on them. Why? Because it’s like dumping huge amounts of fertilizer on one spot. In the right amounts, fertilizers help, but when you overdo it, your lawn burns. Thus the ugly brown spots in your lawn.
And yet, some dog owners don’t believe me. I used to cut lawns at a brand new duplex while it was on the market. Usually, I cut both lawns just before weekend showings. Then, the left side sold and the new owners moved in with a dog.
It didn’t take long for the left side lawn to look awful, full of brown spots, thanks to the dog. I even found a kitchen knife buried in the grass, which is obviously a mowing hazard.
When the owner asked me what was wrong with her lawn, I gently blamed her dog, but she wouldn’t believe me. The neighbour’s lawn looked green, so why not hers?
Hard evidence
By carefully observing the brown spots in the lawn, I could tell it was dog damage. First, you have the brown spot where the dog peed. Then there is a narrow lush green circle all around the brown spot; and next to it is the regular, still green lawn.
The brown spot is obviously burned by having too much fertilizer applied to it, but the narrow circle is lush green because that’s where the fertilizer is available in the right amount. Next to this is the regular lawn which looks unchanged because it didn’t receive any fertilizer, yet.
What inspired this blog post
While my son practiced soccer, I read a new book in Czech, by a local gardener Ondrej Fous. Fous dedicated a full chapter to pee damage so one blog post should be fine. I hope. Fous alerts his readers to what I already experienced with my clients in Canada.
It’s funny how two gardeners make the same observation about dog damaged lawns on separate continents. I smiled when I read about the lush green narrow strip around dog damaged circles. Very few people actually stop to make that observation. I got lucky because I had to remove a kitchen knife from the lawn. The bright green circle is noticeable: that’s where the dog pee acts as perfect fertilizer.
Luckily for me, I took away many other lessons from Ondrej Fous’s new book “Lodyhy”. We’ll cover some of them in future blog posts. For now, trust me, dogs do damage lawns!
