Dog pee cocktail

[fall50]

Like many during COVID we ended up getting a dog (male). While he has been a nice addition, the dog spots in the back have frustrating. I have been trying to overseed with Super Turf II LS Tall Fescue-Bluegrass. I am in the Twin Cities and we have had a very cool spring so germination has been very slow and spoty. The dog spots however dont seem to be taking much at all

I have read about the sugar suggestion, but we already have a ton of sugar ants and that seems like a diaster waiting to happen. Is their anything else like gypsum or some other cocktail that I can try on these areas? Are most people simply throwing seed down and over these spots? Do they first need to be neutralized? Sorry fish out of water here

[MorpheusPA]

Gypsum won't work, you aren't doing a pH neutralization here (which gypsum also won't do). What's happening is that the dog pee is releasing nitrogen, which is burning the grass because there's too much of it.

Sugar's nice, but the effective magic there was actually the water dilution. If you can water the particular area where the dog pees (and convince him to pee in one particular area), that will stop the problem while you work on the core issue.

Feed organically with a high-carbon food, like corn meal or cracked corn, in large amounts. It'll take several years, but you'll notice the burn amounts dropping over time (reductions do happen pretty quickly). On this lawn, with two male dogs, it's not a problem except when the weather is very dry (as I never irrigate), and we encourage visitor dogs when we're not in the middle of a pandemic.

You could go as high as sixty pounds per thousand square feet in May, August, and September, and twenty to thirty per thousand in June and July if you wanted. Or anything you can swing otherwise. Scent of decay should be quite minimal to nothing; corn doesn't usually smell and those amounts aren't that large. You only need to treat the yard where the dog pees.

And of course, the bluegrasses will spread and fill in spots.

[edslawn]

A few additional thoughts that may be helpful...

I have two big dogs (90 lbs+) and a little terrier in a fenced-in backyard of about 10k sq ft. It is a combination of woods and lawn. Last summer we regraded and sodded this area. Anyhow, after doing this work, I didn't want the lawn to be destroyed by the dogs. We ended up creating a 10' strip at the edge of the fence line with wood chips. I then trained the dogs with "go to the chips" every time they go out and they have learned to (mostly) do their business on the chip line. They cheat on occasion, but my goal was to just lower the "pee load" on the grass. I've also found that following the recommendations here to significantly raise the OM content (mulching grass, leaves and use of Milo) and improve soil chemistry has really helped a lot with the overall lawn's ability to handle the general stress of the dogs.