Having carpeted floors can elevate the aesthetics of your house and make it look modern and luxurious without having to spend money on expensive accessories. But the maintenance of it also takes a lot of time and effort. And if you have got any dog, it can’t get any worse than that.
Pets like dogs pee on the carpet sometimes. And it’s probably the hardest stain and odor to remove from the carpet.
Let’s check out a complete guide on how to get dog pee out of carpet without having to ruin it or doing any damage.
Cleaning Wet Dog Urine from Carpet
There’s no doubt that dog pee is very hard to clean, but if you treat it earlier, you’ll have a much easier time with it. Once it dries out, it becomes much difficult to get the stains and odor out of your carpet.
But do you know how to clean dog pee from carpet while it’s still wet? Let’s go over an easy to follow step by step method that you can use.
Step 1: Soak the Urine with Something
The first thing you need to do to remove wet pee from the carpet is to use soak up as much urine as possible before it penetrates deeper into the fabrics. For that, you can use newspapers, or more preferably paper towels, which works amazing.
Be sure to use a thick layer of paper towel to save your hands from getting dirty in the process. It’s a good idea to place these dirty paper towels in the litter box. That’s especially effective for the toy breed dogs as it trains them to use the litter box for peeing. Once you are done, just dump it in the trash bin, and you are done with the first step.
Step 2: Pour Water on the Spot
A fact about dog pee is that it’s easier to clean when the pee spot is wet. That’s why it’s always a good idea to pour some water in the spot to prepare the area for the next treatments that you’ll do.
You should pour the water a bit by bit, as it’ll give the fabrics time to absorb more water. Also, you don’t need to add more than a full glass of water to the soiled area as it might mess with the floor surface, which you don’t want to happen.
Step 3: Use Detergent on the Soiled Area
Once the spot area is wet, you’d have to apply a few bits of detergent there. If it’s a liquid one, just pour a few drops there and evenly disperse the whole soap there. You can also blot it with a soft brush as well. But make sure to be extra gentle with it as it can damage the carpet if you rub it roughly.
Step 4: Soak up the Soap Water
In this step, you have to soak up as much soap water as you can. The detergent will do its work by removing most of the pee from the carpet as well as the bad odor. But you must not keep the carpet wet for a long time as it can damage the fabrics and make them weak.
So, use a few paper towels on the spot to soak up the water from the carpet. Don’t use the ones that you used in the earlier section. That’ll ruin your entire progress, and you don’t want that.
Step 5: Spray Vinegar Solvent on the Carpet
Take a big bottle and pour two cups of lukewarm water, two cups of white vinegar, and 4 spoons of baking soda and mix them well. It’ll give you a vinegar solvent that is super effective on the odor.
Once you got that in hand, put that onto a sprayer and spray it on the soiled area. Now all you have to do is to wait for a few minutes. Letting it sit for 5 to 10 minutes would be enough, and you should move on to the next step from there.
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Step 6: Blot the Spot
After letting the vinegar mixture sit on the carpet for about 10 minutes, you should blot the area with a napkin. That’ll help to get the solvent to the deeper end of the fabric and get the excess liquid out of the spot at the same time, which is very important to get the best results. Otherwise, it’ll be more likely to have a slight stinky odor to it, and that’s the worst-case scenario.
Just use a clean piece of napkin to blot the area until you feel that it’s only slightly damp. That should be a good indicator of where you should stop.
Step 7: Dry the Spot with a Vacuum Cleaner
This is the final step on how to get dog pee out of carpet and you have to use a vacuum cleaner or a carpet cleaner to dry out the soiled area. Those machines will suck up any remaining water from the carpet, and make it ready to use in a short period.
However, if you don’t have access to any wet/dry vacuum cleaner, you can always rely on an electric fan as it’s a great alternative. However, despite that, it’s totally possible to air dry the carpet, but it’s not recommended as it takes a lot of time to get it in a shape to use.
After going over the drying process, you should have a clean carpet and a fresh room free of odor.
Cleaning Dry Dog Pee from Carpet
Once the pee is dry, it’s super hard to clean it off properly and get the smell out. That also requires a few extra steps and a whole new approach to do it as well. Let’s go over a step by step method on how to get dried dog pee out of carpet that you can use.
Step 1: Get a Carpet Cleaner
As you’re dealing with ever so sticky dog urine odor, you must get the right gear to clean it. And there’s no better machine for it than a good carpet cleaner. It’ll help you get the most effective cleaning experience of your carpet that eliminates even the subtle bad odor.
However, you should not use a steam cleaner in this process, as it’ll make the situation even worse. If you don’t want to get a machine, you can rent it as well. But it’s always the best option to get yourself a good quality carpet cleaner. But if you can’t manage any, use white vinegar and water solvent as an alternative.
Step 2: Use the Machine on the Soiled Area
Once you’ve got the carpet cleaning machine, it’s time to use it on the carpet to remove the pee and its smell. For that, you’d need to take a look at the user’s manual of the machine to learn how to use it properly.
You can always search for an online tutorial as well, and that way you can do it easily. The wet carpet cleaner takes the urine out of the carpet and gives a thorough cleaning of the spot, which takes all the hard work and load off of your head.
Step 3: Use Pet Odor Neutralizer in the Spot
Want to remove all the odor from your room and make it as fresh as possible? Then the best thing you can do is to use a pet odor neutralizer in the soiled spot. It’s not that pricey, and you can get an amazing pet odor neutralizer online as well.
Just sprinkle a bit on the area, and it’ll remove all the damped smell and give a nice aroma to the room. But if you don’t want to spend money on that, you can use baking soda as an alternative as well. It won’t bring a nice refreshing smell to your room, but it’ll definitely do that trick. Make sure to vacuum out the baking soda to finish off the process.
Step 4: Reapply It If the Odor Comes Back
Typically going over the previously mentioned steps will get the urine odor out of the carpet pretty effectively. But in some rare cases, the odor can come back after a while. If it does for your scenario, you’d need to repeat the previous step.
You can either apply the pet odor neutralizer or basic baking soda. Applying this one more time will be enough to get the smell out of the carpet. However, if it doesn’t go away, maybe it’s time to replace the carpet and get a new one.
Cleaning Dog Urine from the Surface
Sometimes when your dog pees on the carpet, the pee penetrates through the carpet and ends up affecting the floor. That can lead to so many issues, which might include a permanent odor or damaging the floor as well. Let’s check out an effective method for cleaning the dog urine from such hard surfaces down below.
Step 1: Soak up the Urine
The first thing you need to do immediately is to soak up as much pee as possible from the spot. If the surface is made of wood or anything like that, it’ll do extreme damage as time passes. Even if the surface is made of tiles, you should not delay when it comes to dog urine.
If there’s too much pee on the floor, paper towels won’t hold that. In that case, you can use a dry sponge as it’ll help to soak up the whole thing pretty effectively. And make sure to wear gloves to protect your hands from getting dirty.
Step 2: Get an Enzyme Cleaner
As you’re dealing with a hard surface beneath that was beneath the carpet, you need a powerful substance to be able to clean it. For that, an enzyme cleaner is your best bet as it helps to remove any super sticky odor.
You can definitely find a good enzyme cleaner online at a very affordable price. It’s recommended that you go for a product that has uricase, amylase, lipase, cellulase, and/or protease to it as they are the best ingredients that deal with the pet urine stain and odor better than anything else.
It would be a good idea to test it out on a small portion of your carpet that’s hidden. For that, apply the cleaner there and wait for 10 minutes. If you see any discoloring, that means the carpet is not suitable for the enzyme cleaner. Then you’d have to go for a more gentle detergent and work with that.
Step 3: Use the Cleaner
Now that you’ve got the enzyme cleaner, it’s time to apply it on the soiled spot. You see, dog pee is super hard to get off even if it’s on a hard surface. You can get most of the smell out pretty easily, but the mild odor is very difficult to remove. That’s why you have to apply the enzyme cleaner and let it sit for a bit of time.
You should wait for a couple of minutes to even a few hours to get the best results. Once you do that, move on to the next and final step on the process of how to get old dog urine smell out of carpet.
Step 4: Blot the Cleaner Away
After going over all the previous steps, it’s time to use a fresh paper towel to blot and clean off all the excess cleaner. You need to make sure that your kids and pets don’t have access to the room while you are going over the cleaning process as the chemicals can be toxic and dangerous for them.
However, once you blot the clear, you should have a clean damp floor with no stain and odor left. Then all you have to do is leave it to air dry or use a fan to dry it out faster, and that’ll sum up the cleaning process.
Saving Smaller Rugs or Carpets
It’s not uncommon for a dog to pee on the kitchen rug or a bath rug. It’s a much easier solution than cleaning a carpeted floor, but the smell can still be pretty sticky to remove. Let’s see how to get dog pee out of carpet when it’s a smaller rug or carpet.
Step 1: Read the Cleaning Instructions
Most of the area rugs you find out there comes with a washing instruction. That tells you the exact rules you need to follow before you start the washing process. There is stuff like no bleach, chemicals, and such information is on the washing instructions.
But the most important piece of information for you would be if the carpet is machine washable. For most of the area rugs, you’ll find that these are machine washable. But if yours is not that, it’s going to need a manual wash, which will take extra time and effort. In the next few steps, we’ll have a look at how to clean it without much effort or delay.
Step 2: Mix Baking Soda with the Detergent
Once you get the washing machine ready, you need to mix 1 pound of baking soda with the detergent that you are going to use as well. You see, baking soda is the #1 remedy when it comes to getting the dog pee out of your carpets.
So, as you place the rug on the washing machine along with the regular detergent, sprinkle the baking soda on there, and that’ll help to get the stain and odor out of the carpet.
Step 3: Do a Quick Check-Up
Now that everything is ready and in place, you’d need to run the machine and do the basic cleaning. Run it once and stop to check to see the condition of the area rug.
If you see that your carpet is discoloring for some reason, then you need to take it out as it’s too much for it. Wash it with clean water, and that should be a good indicator to leave it alone. However, that should be more than enough as in most cases, you’ll see that the stain is actually gone, and it won’t cause any more odor as well, which is amazing.
However, if you see that there is a dog pee stain or smell remaining in your area rug, you’d want to go through the next steps.
Step 4: Repeat with Enzyme Cleaner
This step is only for those area rugs which have the dog pee remaining after going over the previous steps. For that, you’d need to apply a bit of enzyme cleaner in the washing machine to get the effective cleaning that you crave. If you don’t have a good quality enzyme cleaner, you can always get one online.
However, make sure that you read the instructions properly and see if the carpet can handle such chemicals. If it doesn’t suit the rug, it can cause unwanted stains and ruin your area rug, which is not what you want to happen.
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Step 5: Let It Dry
Once you get the carpet out of the washing machine, you’d have to let it dry for quite a bit. It’s not recommended that you use machine dry as it can cause damaging reactions to the chemicals.
It’s best to air-dry the rug, and for that, you can just hang it on someplace. If you want to speed up the process, just turn on the fan, and it’ll make the whole thing much faster. Also, be sure to avoid keeping it out of direct sunlight as it might mess up the color integrity. Don’t keep it laying on the surface where kids or pets can reach it easily. Once it’s dried out properly, only then you should use it.
Additional Tips
Dog pee is undoubtedly one of the hardest stains and odor to remove from a carpet even if you have the right methods to do it. Let’s check out some of the tips that you should follow to speed up the process and help to keep the color integrity of the carpet while doing it.
- Baking soda is known as the #1 remedy for taking out any bad odor from fabrics. So, you can simply apply it on any spot, wet or dry, wait for it to do its job, then clean up. That’ll do the basic odor removal for you without doing anything else.
- Work on the odor until it’s completely gone out of the spot. Any remaining smell can stay there for a very long time, which can make your room super stinky.
Make sure to maintain an open ventilation system while you are doing the process of how to get rid of dog urine smell. It’ll definitely help to freshen up the room a lot and even help it dry much faster as well.
- Try avoiding products that have ammonia, an excessive amount of bleach, or such harsh chemicals. These will ruin the color of your carpet and mess up the fabrics as well.
You can train your dog to pee outside every time, or use a litter box as well. That’ll keep your carpets clean, and you won’t have to deal with how to get dog pee out of carpet that can help to save a lot of hassle.
To Wrap Up
You see, having dogs in the home can be a very wholesome thing as they provide the best company. But if you’ve got carpeted floors in your house, they can make the maintenance process a lot harder.
Luckily, you just went through the in-depth guide on how to get dog pee out of carpet that should come in handy while dealing with the dog pee and the odor. You must follow the instructions properly to save your carpet from getting damaged in the cleaning process as well. If you do so, you’ll have a fresh and new looking carpet in no time. Read How to Get Bad Smells Out of Carpet – Complete Guide
