Dogs can create a big problem for those who value the look of their lawns. Dogs can dig holes, tear up the grass, and their urine can leave awful dead spots all over your lawn that look very unsightly. Many dog owners try to look for grass that is capable of handling your dog’s natural behaviour, but that can be very difficult to do.
Here are 3 of the most common lawn problems created by dogs and what you can do about them to preserve that luscious green look.
Urine Spotting
When a dog’s gotta go, a dog’s gotta go, and if you let them out to do their business, they’re inevitably going to pee on your lawn. Unfortunately, your lawn ends up suffering, as a dog’s urine will create dead, brown spots everywhere. This is due to a dog’s protein-based diet: the body breaks down protein to create nitrogen, and excess nitrogen is released in the urine, which can be too much for the grass to handle.
Having artificial grass for pets or watering the area immediately after your dog pees can prevent these dead spots from forming.
Digging Holes
Some dog breeds just love to dig. This was bred into them in order to find game that lived in burrows in the ground, such as daschunds and breeds that specifically work in hunting. Alternatively, some dogs just love to dig because they want a softer place to lie down on the ground. Hard grass isn’t exactly the most comfortable, and a hole will help them to stay cool or warm, depending on the weather outside.
Another way to combat your dog’s need to dig holes is to provide them with a nice, soft place to rest that is at a good temperature, such as a cooling bed during summer or a nice warm bed during winter.
Wear From Constant Use
If you have your dog on a tie out, then there’s going to obvious tracks in your lawn from your dog running in the same patterns over and over again. This is the same if you don’t have a tie-out, as dogs can be creatures of habit. They run in the same patterns over and over again when you let them out and call them back in again, creating wear patterns in your grass.
There’s no real way to combat this kind of problem except to mulch the high traffic areas of your lawn to minimize the wear and tear, but then you run into the problem of mulch being spread everywhere and looking unsightly.
There are some solutions you should be exercising on a regular basis to help keep your lawn in tip-top shape, such as mowing and watering it on a regular basis. You could also take your dog on more frequent walks down the street or to the local park so that it can do its business on someone else’s grass instead. Just remember to bring a bag and pick up after yourself before heading back home.
