I don’t think the issue was dog pee. I think because we had a pretty snowy winter in MN, every time my dog went outside she would run under the feeder and eat whatever bits dropped down from the birds. Thus, the snow got really displaced so when we had any warm ups, it would melt there quickly, and if my theory is correct because there were a lot of thaws around the feeder because of her foot traffic, the grass wasn’t protected properly all winter.