Confessions of a Dog Lover

DO NOT buy a black light unless you want to be horrified.

I love dogs. And I love my dogs the most. They are the sweetest mutts ever. Strays that were abandoned in our neighborhood as puppies.

 Sammy on the day he was found wandering our neighborhood. 

J'Dizzle giving Gretel kisses. 

Gretel  (10 years old) has always been potty trained. She's always asked to go out if she needed to. But Sammy (3 year sold) has been a problem dog. It took a good year to learn how to train him, but I did it. In the mean time he was having accidents in my house, usually while I was away and he was off his chain or out of his kennel, on the boy's watch. I always have cleaned any mess right up. But lately....our home has started to...ugh....

...smell.

KC and I go sniffing all over looking for the foul odor. But lately, it's just a presence. It's so awful, and I am so embarrassed. I don't want anyone to come over until I figure out how to fix it.

So I bought the black light, and 3 quarts of urine stuff, that's guaranteed to get rid of the odor or "your money back". Was I skeptical about the black light? Yes. I'll admit I was. I began downstairs in the two connecting family rooms, where the odor seemed to be more than anywhere else. I darkened the room and turned on the black-light.

Horror.

The sea of florescent green dry pee puddles before me was shocking. I had no idea. It was overwhelming. Sickening.

The lights came on and I read the directions on the bottle of urine solution. It said to saturate the spot thoroughly, and let dry. Ok. Easy enough. I turned off the lights again, turned on the black light, and used the entire quart bottle on six spots.

That's when I knew I was in deep doo-doo. There had to be a better way.

I found a recipe on the internet for a do it yourself solution, requiring white vinegar, baking soda, dish soap and hydrogen peroxide. The recipe is enough for one spot. Agh! I knew I had 3 gallons of white vinegar in my food storage, so I found it and began the first step: a solution of equal parts of vinegar and water, to deeply saturate each spot. At 11:00 PM, I ran out of vinegar. (That's 6 gallons of solution, folks!)

Off to Walmart to buy more vinegar then,12 miles away.  They were closed, but Albertson's was still open! I came out with 6 gallons of white vinegar, 12 pounds of baking soda, and a gallon of hydrogen peroxide. It's a wonder that I wasn't reported to the police for purchasing questionable ingredients. Just in case, I had the urine solution recipe in my hand in the store. I picked up a diet Dr. Pepper for the trip home.

At 3:30 AM I finished applying the hydrogen peroxide solution over the baking soda layer of each soiled spot on the downstairs carpet. Rubbed it all in good. Now I just have to let it dry, and vacuum up the baking soda. Then I'll steam clean the entire carpet again with a pet owners carpet cleaning solution. It will probably be the day after tomorrow before that thick downstairs carpet completely dries.

This morning I woke up and ran downstairs to take a whiff....smelled like vinegar and baking soda and wet dog down there. AAAGH! But it's still wet. There is still hope.

Last night when I finished I took the black light upstairs to see the damage on the carpet of our main living area. Not nearly as bad as downstairs, but still, not good. I was surprised at all the clever places a dog can pee. Now that it's dark I am off to repeat the process upstairs. Not looking forward to another all-nighter, but I am looking forward to no more wretched filthy dog pee smell.

Wish me luck.