My wife and I were taking a walk on a hot night here in So Cal. We noticed that on a number of people’s lawns there were multiple closed containers of water, about a gallon in plastic, spread across the lawn. I’ve not noticed this before but she said that she’s seen this numerous times when growing up in living about 20 miles from our house. I picked up one of the bottles and it didn’t seem to have a slow leak and thus shot down my first theory. I did not open the top and smell the contents so it could be a different clear liquid.
Any ideas of why this is done? We saw it on three separate lawns.
Extra information:
It was a hot night, but this may not be limited to hot nights.
It’s a racially/ethnically diverse neighborhood.
I think some people believe it will keep dogs and cats from pooping in your yard. Link here. I’m dubious about its effectiveness. I’ve never seen it around here in the midwest. Seems to be a Cali thing.
What I have read, and I can’t find a cite - it’s not in Cecil’s column either - is that the original idea for leaving a jug of water on your lawn is so that if somebody’s walking their dog and it pees on your lawn, they’re supposed to take the jug and pour it over the spot to dilute it so your yard doesn’t get a brown spot. So if you sum up the dual courtesy of leaving out water and mitigating your dog’s effect on your neighbor’s grass as “the jug of water is for dogs that pee on the lawn” it’s easy to see how that might get misunderstood as “the jug of water prevents dogs from peeing on your lawn. Dunno how, I just heard it somewhere” and then morph into “the jug of water scares dogs away so they don’t poop in your yard. Everybody knows that.”
Why would a dog peeing on your lawn result in a brown spot? Maybe if one peed ten times a day in the exact same spot, but just the occasional passing dog peeing, I can’t see that as a problem.
Its the lawn gnomes running a moonshine operation. The jugs move slowly from house to house along the street, moved by the gnomes when nobody is looking.
Oh absolutely a spaye bitch can brown a circle with one shot. Especially in dry places like SoCal.
When I was a kid nobody picked up the poop when they walked their dogs, but it was considered neighborly to carry a cup of water and pour it over the pee spot. Most people didn’t know that it is really only necessary with a spayed bitch.
There was heated debate over whether one should soak eggshells in the water to counteract the acidity of the urine.
Folks in the DC suburbs were inSANE about their lawns. :rolleyes:
This is back? I remember when my neighborhood went for it in a big way back in the late '80s. Looked stupid.
“I don’t want brown spots from dog pee” being solved by creating brown squares from leaving jugs of water on your lawn. And it did nothing to stop our dog from peeing on anybody’s lawn.
It would be interesting, because I don’t see why a spayed female would be much different from a non-spayed one. Or even male dogs, for that matter. The uterus doesn’t have a very direct involvement in production of urine.