Man’s best friend is not always a lawn’s best friend and their territorial markings and gotta-go areas can really cause some severe damage to a lawn. There are many methods that you can do to try and recover your existing lawn patches with burn spots, and ways to patch it up as well. There are even ways to help reduce the impact of dog urine on your lawn if you do not own a dog but notice one using your lawn for their dirty business. Taking steps to prevent the problem also encourages great lawn growth and happier bonds between our canine friends.

Trying to revive dead or severely burned grass can be difficult and frustrating, especially because the chemistry of the lawn will be changed and the soil will be very difficult to recover from excess nitrogen for a while. The simple solution is to neutralize the nitrogen with a strong absorbent compound such as gypsum. Gypsum is a great mineral that is naturally occurring and can help to fertilize the ground to shoot life back into your lawn. Many companies market patching seed complete with gypsum to help recover your lawn in a much quicker fashion.

Complete removal of a dead patch and digging up tainted soil may be one of your only options. This is possible if you have areas of lawn that do not have any grass and are hidden or not intended to be seen. This means transplanting useable soil to re-grow your lawn or patching with special seed. This can be very time consuming, but the result is a nicer lawn that shows you care by taking care of the situation.

Preventing the problem can be difficult but possible. Let’s say that you do not own a dog, but your neighbor’s poodle gets loose and has a fun time watering your lawn with lawn poison. If you catch the little critter in the act, you can super saturate the ground with water so the nitrogen rich urine is diluted and gives the lawn a chance to survive. If you notice that your lawn is starting to burn in certain areas, you can try digging up the area if it is not completely dead yet and rinsing the soil out very well somewhere that the runoff will not harm your lawn. You can then try replanting and adding some gypsum or Epsom salts to the area to help the grass recover slowly.