Hi all

I have a 7 year old female yellow Labrador.

Just moved home and am the proud owner of a new garden (mainly lawn) and close to 1/3 acre in size. We have yellow/brown patches all over from her urine

I'm very worried she is going to ruin the whole lawn!

Any ideas?

One idea is to train her to go in one area only. How the heck do I do that?

Tried dog rocks in the past with no luck.

Its not practical to walk behind her with a pint of water.

Anyone overcome this problem?

TL

I had a nice garden once, then I bought a puppy!

We water the lawn spots once a week with diluted zoflora disinfectant (keep dogs off until it is completely dry) this seems to help but generally some lady dogs do kill grass it's just what they do.

Unfortunately, the only sure fire way to stop it is to train your dog not to pee on the lawn. The grass turns yellow from the nitrogen in the dog's pee, and because bitches squat down there's a higher concentration deposited into the grass, than with a dog who won't do the same damage. It's basically like going overkill with fertiliser on the grass. The simplest thing is to chuck a bucket of water over where the dog has been to dilute the nitrogen concentration. Some will say to give the dog something in her food to alter her pH, do NOT do this. It is not worth damaging your dog's pH balance for the sake of a patch of grass! Dog Rocks which you put in the water are safe, but you say you've tried them and they didn't work? Did you make sure your girl couldn't drink anywhere else? If the dog drinks from anywhere else at all, they won't work, she has to only drink from the bowl with those rocks in. You could increase her water uptake, but that only works if you can get her to drink, and obviously the more water you put in a dog the more chance of accidents in the house!

Your only other option is to train her not to go on the grass, and the way to do that is to teach her to pee on command. When she wants to go out, put her on a long lead and take her to the area you do want her to use, and the second she squats, give a command like 'bathroom' or 'go pee' along with a treat. Do this every time you take her out and she will come to associate the command with the action. Gradually up the training, remove the lead, only give a treat every other time etc, until you can go outside, give her a command and she will instantly go to her 'patch'. Be patient, this is easier to teach to a new pup than an adult dog. Other than that, your pretty much stuck with yellow grass, but don't put fertiliser on it to try and improve it, as your just putting more nitrogen on it and will kill it even faster.

OP you could try this to give to the dog to mitigate the urine effects. It has some good reviews. My girl has poor liver and kidney health so I wouldn't give without consultimg the vet. Otherwise.....
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-UM-Law...words=green-um

Green um doesn't work IME

We give her a dollop of tomato ketchup in her food.Can't say it cures it but it does help a bit. Tried not giving it and patches got worse so went back to it,as I say no curebut a bit of improvement.
Anyway it's lycopene which is good for us and probably does the dog good too

Sorry for not responding sooner!

Just wanted to thank people for their posts.
Will try training my dogs to go in one area.

I had a new lawn in the spring and it is ruined, the bits my cockapoo hasn't used as a loo have been dug up so she can bury toys in. I have stopped her digging and with 2 walks a day she doesn't need to do much in the garden but the damage is done.

So, next spring I am going to put artificial grass down, more cost effective in the long run.

Our girl(dog) goes out twice a day morning good run in the country park and a good lead walk later.

We always take a poop bag but never have to use it as she comes home straight in the garden and performs straight away. It was where she was trained to go as a pup so that's where she goes.nuisance really but she means well.

Regarding poop - I left "poo patrol" for a day and ended up collecting 10 bags of the stuff from our garden on day two! We have a soil pipe on the side of our house so will be installing a doggybog (arrived last week). Clever bit of kit that connects to the pipe so you can simple put it in there. Will be making a thread once its ready and in use