Lawns - Brown Patches on New St. Augustine Sod

I am sure this question has been asked a hundred times so I apologize in advance.

FYI, I am in the Dallas, TX, area, in case that info is needed in order to help me out with a solution.

I laid this sod a month ago today. Overall it's looking great but it's developed some brown patches in one area that concern me. After hunting around I assume this is what's called "brown patch" though perhaps the pictures will help someone more knowledgeable make a more accurate diagnosis. My concern now is how do I get rid of it without poisoning my dogs? I read around online and found that a mixture of 4tbs baking soda and 1tbs dish soap to one gallon of water is supposed to help. I couldn't find how often to apply it, though, and whether this would actually cure the fungus or if it only works as a preventative. I mowed the sod and applied this mixture via a dial sprayer today.

I am open to using a commercial fungicide if necessary, though I have several dogs and I really need to find something that is safe to use around them.

My other question is, once I do get rid of this stuff, how do I keep it away? What am I doing wrong? I was told that it was virtually impossible to overwater my new sod for the first 7-10 days. I watered it a lot and then tapered off to a couple of times per week after that. It's only been down for one month and it's needed mowing 4 times already.

Any help would be appreciated!

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Okay, so how do I get the images to show up? I used the proper [IMG] code and tags.

You have post pics to a photo site like photobucket etc then post a link to that.

Fungicides as well as many other lawn products are only significantly dangerous in the wet state.When dry the risk drops off considerably.After a week or two it's likely the residue would be low enough to no longer worry about it but if you kept your pets off the area while wet after application and after rains for awhile you should be fine.

Also a call to your vet might give you additional info.

The photos were uploaded and hosted at ************. I'm quite familiar with how to post photos on forums, but the typical method of enclosing the photo's URL inside of IMG tags did not work.

Can anyone help me out? Am I not allowed to post photos as a new user?

Since the name of the site you used apparently was censored it may be blocked or unusable here.Try photobucket.That site works fine here.