Dog pee and street tree protection: protocols, prophyllaxis, and prospects?

ward

ward

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Location
Unincorporated Clackamas, OR
Couldn't find anything in our literature about dog pee and soils protection, especially around street trees. Can anyone give me a reference on this? Soil amendments, partial replacement seems likes the best approach but it would seem that products must exist which a. deflect pee away from the root collar (e.g., a "pee collar") and b. which help absorb excessive urea and salts. Any thoughts or references appreciated.
 
Oh Lord...I just may have to research the dog pee angle.

Actually some turf people may be helpful if they're aware of any species or cultivars that are particularly adept at taking it in and not being spot killed in the process. I text a couple. Not much help for a tree that gets directly peed upon but it's a start.

Drainage improvement along with leaching comes to mind as does minimalizing any further fert/salt inputs. Hard to do near streets and sidewalks in the north though.
 
Talked to two friends, both MS in turf fields. Both said tall fescue is probably the most salt tolerant.

My recollection of studying salt affected soils is leaching with clean water, improving drainage, and restricting further inputs. Good information in Harris, Clark, and Matheny "Arboriculture" as well as Brady "Nature and Properties of Soils" regarding salt affected soils. OM additions may help but I don't recall for sure.
 

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Electric fence! Ha! I remember in NYC the high end apartments would have miniature wrought iron fences around their trees. Though that might work for dogs, I can't imagine the liability when Mr. Highdollar tenant impales himself when he trips over it after a night on the town. PDX transportation doesn't allow this kind of thing. Neither can I imagine pouring ag. lime--or cat litter for that matter--over the root zone. I remained puzzled in pdx...
 
It is very useful information and thank you a lot because I have only had a dog for two days and I still have a lot to learn to make everything perfect. For this reason, I have always searched for new information on the internet in order to be able to give my dog the best, realizing that his future depends on any step and choice made by me. While reading on different forums I came across English lab dogs and many curiosities about them. I found them so cute that I bought exactly one of them and I am so happy with this choice.
 
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From some previous research I found that dog urine spots zoysiagrass because of the high nitrogen content in dog urine. Kinda like burning it by overfertilizing. They make pills for dogs that are supposed to reduce the free nitrogen in their urine. (And yes, you can buy them in Amazon.)
 
Seems to me that none of the nutrients in dog (or any other kind of pee) are in a time-released form, so they should leach out pretty easily. Animals have been marking their territories on trees since time out of mind. This may be a solution (see what I did there) looking for a problem.
 
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