And no, it's not applying our LawnMutt treatment. Although that will make a significant difference.
The best and most effective thing you can do is to lessen the amount of Nitrogen fertilizer you apply to areas visited by your dog. Dog urine contains urea or ammonia nitrogen. The damage to the lawn is actually the result of a nitrogen overdose.
If you deal with dog urine damage, make a mental note this year to evaluate how much worse the urine spots get a few weeks after applying nitrogen fertilizer.
To decrease the dog urine damage to your lawn this summer, lessen the amount of nitrogen fertilizer added to the areas used by your dog. This will help to manage the amount of nitrogen being force-fed to your lawn.
Long-term prevention of dog urine damage to your lawn is a two-part process. In addition to managing the amount of nitrogen, we need to increase the ability of the soil to metabolize and digest the nitrogen.
This is where our LawnMutt product can make a significant difference. It contains a concentration of "Healthy Bacteria" that will greatly improve the soils ability to digest and process the urea/ammonia nitrogen contained in dog urine.
Ammonia and nitrogen can be damaging to lawns and needs to be broken down into nitrate nitrogen, which is easier for the lawn to consume. This is a biological process and will grow over time under suitable soil conditions. LawnMutt is formulated to build and improve this biological process.
If you have ever kept a fish aquarium you may be familiar with the nitrogen cycle. The biological processes in the soil are acting like the filter on an aquarium and by increasing the number of beneficial bacteria in the soil it can "filter" dog urine without damaging the lawn.
If you manage the quantity of nitrogen fertilizer and apply LawnMutt you can have a happy, healthy dog and a beautiful, healthy lawn.