FAO dog and garden owners!

i dont know, but i want the answer too lol

apparently you are supposed to dedicate one area for them to pee in, but trying to get my dog to just go where i want her to is like trying to get a goat to sing the national anthem. In tune.

I don't know, but you should see our garden!! Little brown patches of dead grass everywhere! Luckily it's a side garden and no one really sees it.

You could start to take your dog out only on lead so s/he can only wee where you want him/her to.

There is no way I would be able to get Ray to do this, not in a million years! I only noticed how bad it was when H mowed the lawn on Sunday! There are patches of dead grass everywhere!

I could always try OB but he's used to doing it where he wants so it might be a big ask. Wish me luck!

You can get something called a wee post (or something?). Basically it smells like something the dog wants to pee on - you stick it in the ground where you want them to go.

I can't vouch for it though as I've never used one - we only have a front garden and it's slate not grass.

I call shenanigans. Ketchup is pH 4, dog urine is pH 5.5-7.5.

The saltiness of ketchup might make your dog drink more water though, which will dilute any urine?

Apparently it's the nitrogen in dog urine that kills the grass? What's in ketchup that would stop that?

Oh I'm sure you're right - it's all over t'interweb. Was a genuine question - I'm just interested what it is in the ketchup that reduces the nitrogen effect on the grass. I'm sure Footlong'll know.

I might give the ketchup a go. Aarchk funny you say that because Ray has just in the past week learnt how to *** his leg up to go for a wee and last night I notices he was doing it against the flower beds so hopefully he'll carry on this way, I'll keep my eye on him.

I have this exact same problem! Milo is not cocking his leg yet though, so hoping that this may solve the problem once he does

The dog rocks work really well, they just sit in his water bowl. Personally I wouldn't add ketchup to his food due to the high salt content.

My musings from t'interweb...

Dog Rocks are some weird kind of rock that naturally absorbs nitrates form drinking water. This means that your dog takes in less nitrates and therefore less come out in his urine. For some dogs, this reduction is enough to stop their urine burning the grass. For dogs fed with lots (too much!) meat, they won't make much difference, as removing the nitrates from the dog's drinking water is only the tip of the iceberg.

Ketchup is a highly-processed food that, I suspect, contain various salt nitrates. It seems a little counter-intuitive that ketchup could therefore reduce the amount of nitrate in a dog's urine. I am currently having at look at some biochem pathways to see if nitrate intake triggers increased nitrate breakdown/conversion, which "overshoots" the effects of the ketchup intake.

You need some of this in your life http://www.dogrocks.co.uk/

Not sure if it works because we never tried it , but we were told to put a bit of white vinegar in your dogs water. I think it's supposed to have the same effect.

Well I watched him last night and he seems happy at hitching his leg up over the flower beds so I think I'll leave the ketchup and dog rocks for now. Thanks for all your input guys.