The primary concern in addressing urine damage to lawns is minimizing the nitrogen concentration added to the lawn at any single time. Female dogs, being less likely to urine mark and more likely to squat, are the primary culprits of lawn damage since they will urinate anywhere on a lawn and usually all at once. This results in a single nitrogen dump confined to a small patch of grass. The brown spot that results will often have a green ring around the outside. The nitrogen overload at the center causes the burn, but as the urine is diluted toward the periphery, it has a fertilizer effect. This characteristic brown spot/green ring pattern has been called 'female dog spot disease' by some horticulturists. As might be expected, lawns are most susceptible to nitrogen burns when standard fertilizers are maximized in the lawn. Homeowners making the extra effort to have a green lawn may be quite discouraged by their neighbor's dog or their own housepet's damage.

Here are a few tips to help you solve the problem:

• Saturate the urinated areas (spots) with water. The best way to help prevent urine burns and dead spots is to saturate the spots with water. This will allow the excess nitrogen to leach or dilute through the lawn and reduce the concentration in one area. It is usually best to treat the areas up to 9 hours after urination and to apply at least three times the amount of water to urine to the area.
• Repair or replace the effected spot. Dead spots can either be over-seeded or totally replaced with new seed or sod. If you have a warm-season grass, it will generally repair itself over time through the spreading of stilons and rhizomes over the effected area.
• Replant with a more urine-resistant grass. The most urine-resistant grasses tend to be Perennial Ryegrasses and Fescues. The worst urine-resistant grasses tend to be Kentucky Bluegrass and Bermuda. If you have a number of dogs and/or confine them to small areas of the yard, then you may want to consider re-planting with one of the more urine-resistant grasses.
• Train your dog to urinate in certain areas. If you have the time and a location in your yard to designate as a "urinating spot", you can simply use an alternative ground covering on that spot such as mulch. To help your dog utilize this spot, you can try moving his/her feces and/or poor their urine over the spot until they learn to associate the smell with the spot.

Previous tips on dogs and lawn burn.