I was fostering a dog for about a month and she pretty much destroyed my yard. I already have 2 dogs, and she would play with one of mine quite often back there. Since it was late in the year, and she was playing with one of my other dogs back there, I didn't really do anything about it and am now paying the price. I'm not even sure how or when to start the repair process. I live in SC so teps are in the 40s-50s but I wasn't sure if it's too cold to start seeding or what to do. Any help is greatly appreciated!
by Haifisch2112
12 Comments
Easy fix. Just throw down some good seed and water
I don’t let my dogs pee on my grass. When we play catch on the grass they may pop a squat randomly here and there. They know where they are supposed to go to the bathroom on the side of the house where theres gravel in the dog run. Dog urine kills grass to the root and it takes a a couple months or more to grow back fully. You can prep the soil and plant sod or seed and it will grow back but you have to keep the dogs from using it as a litterbox.
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He was just aerating your lawn for you
Good on you for fostering, need more people like you out there!
We foster cats and kittens, our lab absolutely loves them.
Dogs vs grass is a terrible battle. I specifically take mine outside now and walk with them so I can immediately pick up their poop and prevent them from damaging the yard. I made the mistake of letting them play while the yard was wet at our old house and fought to grow grass for 3 years and never succeeded
Looks like the yard is full of clover already
Well the start of the fix is to keep your dogs off it altogether so the problem doesn’t get worse. That’s usually where fixing this problem fails – the dog owners unwilling or unable to keep pets/kids off the lawn while the grass is growing.
Allowing the grass to die will destroy your yard and foundation.
Dog didn’t do that..
Yup. Dogs usually destroy small yards like this.
Looks like bermuda. Wait until June and see how much of it comes back if any. Fertilize in mid May with something like a 25-0-12 or similar analysis. Start watering it then as well if you’re not getting adequate rain. You can you use a pitch fork or a hand aerator to put some air back into the soil around that same time. By hand would be easiest given such a small aera. By the end of June or mid July if you’re not seeing good improvement/new growth you can sprig some areas from other parts of the lawn, or just buy some sod and throw it down. Google or YouTube how to sprig/plug. You can buy a proplugger, or do it with shovel or something like a bulb planter.
If you don’t want to wait until June or July to see if it will recover on it’s own, then resod the area in April or May.
In the mean time keep the dogs off it. If you intend to keep it nice you’ll need to take steps to minimize or keep your expectations as check. Dogs create a lot of issues with turf as you have seen. You can cover with straw to keep the mud down until then. Besides dealing with your weeds, apply a pre-emergent to the rest of the lawn, skipping the bare section. Outside of that there isn’t much to be done until spring.