A friend of mine has recently got a small female dog and wants to know what to do about the dog urine patches in the lawn. I have read your suggestion to put vinegar in the water that the dog drinks but you do not say in what ratio the vinegar should be. Could you please give the approximate quantities involved.

• The ratio is one teaspoon of vinegar per one litre of water. It might pay to check with the vet that it is okay for the breed of dog to have vinegar in their water.
• Make sure there is a bowl of water without vinegar in case the dog does not drink the vinegar water.
• It is very hard to stop the patches as dog urine has a very high concentration of urea which burns lawns.
• There are lawn seed varieties in development that can tolerate high levels of urea, but they are a few years off yet.
• Also worth trying is laying a patch of bark or artificial grass that the dog is taught to pee on rather than the grass.