Got four-legged family members? Here’s how to do lawn maintenance with dogs

Posted on: Feb 13, 2019Jordyn Rowntree

Lawn maintenance with dogs can seem like quite the troublesome affair. There’s a very credible fear that dog owners have that they won’t be able to maintain their lawn when a dog is introduced to it. Whether it’s certain parts of it being trampled, torn up, or urinated upon, there are a plethora of things that dog’s do that can do your lawn harm. However, you don’t have to let your dog be the reason you give up on your lawn. Here’s how to do lawn maintenance with dogs.

Train Your Dog

This is perhaps the golden rule for lawn maintenance with dogs. The best way to maintain your lawn when you have a dog is avoidance. If you can train your dog to avoid doing certain things on the lawn, namely urinating and excreting upon it, then that’s your biggest hurdle for lawn care overcome.

Pick the Right Grass

With that said, your dog will run around on your lawn, that is practically an inevitability as well as part of the fun of having a dog. With that being the case, it makes sense to make sure you plant grass that is particularly durable so that it can withstand the wear and tear of being run upon. A couple of these grasses are Matilda grass and Bermuda grass, but there others as well.

Dilute Dog Urine and Pick Up Dog Feces

Even with dog training, there could be times when accidents take place and your dog passes waste on your lawn. As much as lawn maintenance with dogs is about avoidance, it’s also about contingency plans.

So, if you spot your dog urinating on your lawn, be ready to water the area down with a hose or some other water source so that the urine is diluted and its harm mitigated. Or, if you see your dog defecating on your lawn, have something, whether it be a glove, bag, or scooper, to quickly pick it up off your lawn. Remember, if these spots aren’t dealt with in a timely fashion they could become dead spots, places on your lawn where the grass has trouble growing.

Get Your Dog Eating and Drinking Right

One last thing to keep in mind for lawn maintenance with dogs is actively mitigating for the effects of dog waste by changing your dog’s diet and encouraging it to consume more water. By simply adding a bit more salt to your dog’s diet, you can get it to drink more water, which in turn decreases the harm of its urine.

Similarly, by getting your dog to eat food that’s easy for it to breakdown and are evenly balanced in terms of the pH scale, the feces it passes are less likely to be harmful to your lawn. With all that in mind, just to be safe, be sure to consult a veterinarian before making any drastic dietary changes to your dog’s food.