Hi Dori and Howard,
Actually, it has been known for a long time that urine pH doesn’t play a role in lawn burn. It was one of the variables tested in the paper published in 1981 titled appropriately enough “Lawn Burn from Dog Urine” : ) Apparently Dr. Becker wasn’t aware that the idea that pH burns lawns had been tested and found not to be valid The author writes ” The pH of urine has no effect on lawn burn” The pages loaded out of order but you can find it here: http://www.myxyz.org/phmurphy/dog/LawnBurn1.pdf
I found it interesting that the author found that dl methionine had a diuretic effect when added to the diet and it is a diuretic effect and not a pH effect that can help mitigate burn. Salt though was just as if not more effective.
I don’t advise adding things to diets though for lawn burn, except for water. I did find it interesting that in two articles that discuss the nitrogen load as the reason for lawn burn it was proposed that if feeding a high protein diet that lowering the protein level in the diet would decrease the amount of nitrogen needing to be excreted and may help mitigate lawn burn. It is an interesting thought but remains untested. Would make for an easy and good science fair project!
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2085&aid=1493
http://www.doghealth.com/how-to/how-to-prevent-lawn-burn-from-dog-urine
