Dog Wee

I thought I'd run this past you, as I saw an advertisement in the paper today which reminded me of something that has been puzzling me. The ad was for something to stop dogs weeing on your lawn; as we all know, dog wee kills the grass. In fact, when I had bitches, I replaced my small lawn with a gravelled area because of it (and because I was fed up with cutting what grass there was left between the muddy patches!)

Now, my brother-in-law has a Springer Spaniel bitch and she goes everywhere with him, so much so that she accompanies him and my sister when they visit my mum. And Violet (for that is the spaniel's name) sometimes wees on one of my mum's three lawns. But here's a strange thing - the grass where she has wee'd, instead of dying, grows taller thicker and darker green than the rest of the grass. If we could get her to wee thoroughly and evenly over inch of grass my mum would have wonderful lawns with no need of lawn weed-killers (although it would have be mown more often).

What is it about Violet's wee? I'm guessing it may have something to do with nitrogen - she is fed on some dry kibbly sort of complete food for sporting dogs I think. She was rescued from a gamekeeper at 10 months old (she wouldn't retrieve the game, apparently) and was dreadfully thin when my b-i-l got her, but is now in wonderful condition - a lovely dog. Even my sister (not a dog-lover) loves her.

I'd love to know what anyone thinks.

Mmmm good question. I would also guess at nitrogen - but does that mean she's excreting protein in her urine? If so, that's not a good thing.
I had a beautiful lawn, we had four dogs living here, two GSDs and two collies - no problems at all. Then I got a GSD puppy, and the collies moved out - my lawn is wrecked! Tristan has been the death of my lawn, and it's never recovered from hs arrival (but I wouldn't change that for the world!).

Strange, isn't it?

My girls' pee never seemed to affect the lawn at all - very odd!