If you share your home with a dog or cat, urinary or fecal accidents are bound to happen. Whether she is a pup who is not quite house trained or an elderly cat who misses the litter box, these accidents need to be cleaned up appropriately with the right cleaner.
What Is a Scent Post?
Whenever dogs or cats urinate or defecate, specific scent chemicals are passed with the urine and feces. The smell of these substances triggers an elimination reflex in dogs and cats that is not unlike the territorial marking of their wild relatives. Dogs and cats naturally return to an area where these scent chemicals are present, thus creating "scent posts," places where dogs and cats will consistently eliminate.
This instinctive behavior is an aid to housetraining puppies, since they learn to associate their outside scent posts as the place to eliminate. Unfortunately, scent posts can also be an obstacle to housetraining if (and when) your puppy has an accident indoors. The same holds true for cats and kittens who eliminate outside of their litter boxes.
Cleaning up accidents thoroughly is critical to preventing the creation of scent posts in your home. With their sense of smell being many times greater than humans, dogs and cats can easily detect urine and fecal odors that have been cleaned with conventional household cleaners, carpet shampoos, and ammonia. The result can be a distressing pattern of repeated accidents in the same spot.
How Enzymatic Cleaners Help Clean Stains
To clean a fecal or urinary stain, first blot the area with a rag or towel to remove as much of the dampness as possible. Then treat the area with an enzymatic cleaner that uses natural enzymes to break down and neutralize the odor. Enzymes are proteins that speed up biological reactions. In this case, the enzymes break down uric acid into carbon dioxide and ammonia. The carbon dioxide and ammonia then evaporate, not only removing the stain, but also the odor. Enzymatic cleaners are the only products that actually remove the stain and odor, as opposed to simply covering up the odor.
Be sure to follow the instructions of the particular enzymatic cleaner you are using. Do not use any other cleaners prior to using the enzymatic cleaner because the chemicals in other cleaners may interfere with the enzymes in the enzymatic cleaner. Also, be sure to clean all areas that have been soiled. This includes furniture, carpeting, carpet padding and sometimes even the subfloor in severe cases.
While accidents do happen, the best way to clean up urinary and fecal accidents is with an enzymatic cleaner. Other cleaners only cover up the odor so it may not be detected by the human nose, but dogs and cats will be able to smell urine or feces that has not been removed by an enzymatic cleaner.
Article by: Race Foster, DVM and Angela Walter, DVM