Archive for August, 2009
Grass and Dog Urine
Posted by Dog Urine in Grass Dog Urine on August 28th, 2009
I have found products that color or paint the grass. Products to spray on the grass that help it recover from the nitrogen effects of the dog urine. I have found products to feed your dog that supposedly change the PH of the dogs urine to less acidic. There are all types of products to feed your dog to fix this problem of dead grass spots in your lawn. Wafers, Biscuits, pills, liquids that you add to the dogs drinking water and more. I have also found grass seed designed for reseeding those area's in your lawn. All of these may have their place and do the job. I do not know I have not tried them all. Different solutions work for different people and their own situations. I will tell you what I have been looking for. I am looking for a product that you sprinkle on the lawn (similar to weed and feed) in the areas that the dog urine is killing. This product will then bind the nitrogen and change it so it becomes fertilizer to the lawn and not so concentrated that it burns it. I thought I had found just that product but I could not get the company to respond to my inquiries. I am looking at another lead on this kind of product and I will let you know when I find it.
I don't believe the PH has much to do with urine killing the grass. I think it is the nitrogen content in the soil from the urine that kills the grass. Especially if you have treated it with a lawn fertilizer that has nitrogen in it already. I have read several reports about it. I have not done my own study on this but the nitrogen makes more sense to me.
There are natural ways to deal with the problem that don't involve buying anything extra. Watching the dog and each time it urinates on the lawn you can dilute it by adding water to the spot. Three times the amount of water to the amount of urine within eight hours of the urine being deposited is recommended to get resutls. Personally I can't or won't do this one. I don't mind diluting it when I see the dog urinate in the yard but I am not going to watch every time for it. You can change the dogs diet to one that produces less protein waste. This will reduce the nitrogen in the urine. Either a lower protein diet or a food that the dog digests the protein better. Check with your vetrinarian. You can walk the dog regularly so it urinates in a place of your choosing. If it is a neighbors dog causing the problem advise them of the leash laws. Then there is the option of potty training the dog to use a specific area of your yard. An area you have designated for your dog to go. Get your dog to drink more. You can add a little water to your dogs food. This will dilute the nitrogen in the urine. Your dog may need to urinate more often but it will be less damaging. These are all possibilities where you do not have to buy anything more than you are already buying.
Dog Urine Solutions August 28, 2009
- ChronicleLive - News - Today's Chronicle - Gateshead woman left *...*
August 25, 2009
- Never leave your dog unless you are shore it will be taken care of.
Pet Baking Soda
Posted by Dog Urine in Pet Stains on August 27th, 2009
I have seen home remedies suggesting the use of baking soda to remove pet odors. Baking soda absorbs odor molecules from the air. This is why people often place an opened box of baking soda in their refrigerators to absorb food odors. Odor absorbing would be the benefit of applying baking soda. Baking soda is alkaline (base). Much of the urine odor is caused by ammonia. This ammonia is alkaline (base). So adding baking soda to a situation where ammonia is already present only increases the total alkalinity. This could potentially allow the ammonia (or ammonia and baking soda combination) to do greater damage to the dyes, removing color from the carpet.
Baking soda is also a key ingredient in carpet deodorizers such as Carpet Fresh, Love my Carpet and so forth. These do not get completely removed from the carpet by vacuuming. Repeated use of baking soda or products containing baking soda will build –up in the carpet. When cleaning time comes, this can wick to the surface creating a real mess and the need for repeated cleaning to eliminate the powder.
Advantages:
Baking soda absorbs odor molecules from the air. When odor molecules are removed from the air they cannot enter our nose and the smell is effectively gone.
Disadvantages:
Increase in total alkalinity can be harmful to the dyes in fabrics.
Build up of residue in carpet or fabric creating the need for repeated cleanings to remove it.
Baking soda does not digest, break down, encapsulate or neutralize the urine residue molecules past absorbing them from the air.
Also see the advantages and disadvantages of using vinegar on pet stains.
Pet Stains Vinegar
Posted by Dog Urine in Pet Stains on August 25th, 2009
Should you use vinegar to remove pet stains and odor?
There are two home remedies for removing pet urine that I have run into over and over again on the internet. One is using vinegar and the other is using baking soda. I have seen suggestions to use these in different combination's with other additional products. I have also seen suggestions to use them without any products added. I am going to discuss Vinegar in this post and baking soda later. First if you are going to use vinegar make shore you use plain white vinegar. If you use vinegar with any coloring in it, you are just as likely to add a stain as you are of removing one. The coloring (dyes) in the vinegar can easily create a permanent stain.
Vinegar is an acid. Fresh urine is an acid base. When you try to remove an acid with an acid it is less than effective. Urine begins to change immediately upon leaving the body (human or mammal). This change involves, among other things, the creation of alkaline salt crystal (white powder like residue). These salt crystals are very alkaline (11+) on the Ph scale. After this has occurred then the acidic vinegar will help to neutralize that part of the urine residue which is now alkaline. The vinegar is a relatively weak acid and the salt crystal are a strong alkaline. You may need to use a stronger acidic spotter than vinegar for it to completely neutralize the salts. Once alkaline or acid is neutralized it can be removed easily. To remove it you can use absorption or extraction. Absorb it with a clean dry white absorbent towel or rag. Or extract it with a wet dry vacuum or similar piece of equipment. If you have a spotting machine that sprays a little cleaning solution on and extract it again this is best because you get a good rinsing action and you will remove more residue.
Vinegar as an odor remover acts as a masking agent. That is, the odor of the vinegar covers the odor of the urine or masks it until the odor of the vinegar wears off. Then the urine odor returns. Actually it has never left it has been covered from our ability to smell it by the vinegar.
Advantages:
Vinegar will act a rinsing agent like water to dilute the urine and if extracted or absorbed remove some of the residue.
Vinegar will act as a deodorizer by covering or masking the urine odor.
The acidic nature of vinegar will help to neutralize the urine alkaline salts in dried urine.
Disadvantages:
Cleaning acid with acid is not effective and can complicate your problem. By adding vinegar to the urine spot you will increase the volume of liquid and possibly soak the urine deeper into the carpet.
Vinegar does not digest, encapsulate, neutralize or change the odor molecules. It masks them.
Urine Odor Removal
Posted by Dog Urine in Urine Odor on August 22nd, 2009
When you are removing urine deposits whether it is fresh or old you are also removing the urine odor with it. The problem is in the case of a carpet and pad or a mattress or upholstered furniture etc. it becomes almost impossible to remove the entire urine residue. On hard surfaces such as sealed hardwood, tile or vinyl where the urine does not penetrate the surface, it is much easier to remove the majority if not all of the residue.
So step one is to remove as much urine as you can. Whether you use extraction with a wet dry vacuum or absorption with paper towel get as much out as possible. If you have access to a carpet or upholstery machine it will spray a solution onto the area and extract it back out again flushing the area and removing more urine odor. You can do this with absorption also by taking a spray bottle and spraying a little water or solution and absorbing it out again. If you do this be careful not to use too much liquid and drive the urine residue deeper into the carpet or fabric.
After you have removed what you can then you will treat the remaining residue with a good urine odor neutralizing chemical. You can read about the types of chemicals that are affective on urine odor removal here.
Urine Odor Remover
Posted by Dog Urine in Odor Removal on August 21st, 2009
Another chemical that is affective as a urine odor remover. I previously wrote an article about the types of chemicals used as urine odor removers. Today I am going to add one more that is also used effectively at removing urine. These chemicals are useful for removing or eliminating many types of odors but we are specifically dealing with dog urine here so that is what I will address. I talk about 4 different types of chemicals in the other post. In this post I will describe a 5th type. It is an oxidizing agent. Many people ask me is there anything that really works on dog urine. The answer is yes. I want to point out three keys that will make the difference as to whether it does or does not work for you.
First: Use one of the types of chemicals that are effective at doing the job. There are many products being sold that are not even designed to remove the smell of urine. For example masking agents.
Second: Get a quality chemical. There are many chemicals designed to do the job but are of inferior quality. We all know about these.
Third: Use the chemical properly. This can be the biggest problem. For the job of urine odor removal you need to use the chemical as it was designed to be used or you will at best, only get partial urine odor removal. These chemicals must come in contact with the urine to be able to work on it. Some of them need a minimum amount of time in contact with the urine residue to work. They must be kept moist during that time. Some have temperature requirements to get results from them. These factors can vary some and you can still get partial results. But you need to keep these factors within the tolerances of the chemical you are using to get the complete results you want.
Oxidation happens to be one of the fastest methods of treatment. It is also excellent because it deals with all three aspects of urine deposits – odor, stain and contamination. The oxidation process releases large amounts of oxygen causing the urine to break down to more basic components like oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and other components. This process decontaminates the urine residue. In addition it removes the stain and neutralizes the odor. These basic components that are left then either leave as gases or are easily extracted and removed.
Dog Urine Solutions August 21, 2009
- Veterinarians warn about Lepto in humans
August 18, 2009
- I understand there are only a few cases of Lepto reported each year in the state of New York. It is always wise to take precautions when you have a sick dog.
dog urine problems
There are quite a number of dog urine problems that we can run into. My wife and I have a pug (Betty) and she recently had blood in her urine. She has had this regularly over the past several months. She also has strong smelling urine at times when she has an infection or a cold. The dog urine problems we address in this blog are the ones that come after the urine has left the dog. The urine spots in the grass. Urine stains on hardwood or in carpet or grout. If your dog happens to be spraying walls and furniture etc. we will have solutions for that. The odor that is associated with urine. The ammonia odor and off gassing odor the bacteria in the urine produce. Types of chemicals used for dog urine problems and why they are or are not effective. We will find the best equipment, products and procedures to remedy these problems. Leave a suggestion in the box on the right hand side of the page and let us know what you would like to have us find a solution for. Try to make it relate to dog urine problems.
Suggestion Box
I have just added a suggestion box in the sidebar on the right hand side of this page. As you can see it is run by Skribit. You can leave suggestions of what topics you would like to see covered on this blog. You can see what suggestions others have left. You can sign up to be notified when a topic gets a post written about it. I would like to know if you are finding what you were looking for when you came to this blog. So please let me know.
Smell Urine
Here I want to describe a little about the sense of smell (olfaction). When you understand these principles you will be much more effective when it comes to purchasing and using odor removal products and getting the results you are looking for. If you smell urine or any disagreeable odor there has to be 4 conditions present. If you eliminate any one of these things the smell is gone. At least as far as your nose is concerned, it is gone. These four things are:
1. Molecules of the odorous (smelly) substance must be volatile enough to get into the air, or evaporate and get into the air, and enter our noses. If we stop the molecules from getting into the air they then will not enter the nose and you will not smell the odor. Some of the odor products that are available use this principle to eliminate the smells.
2. These molecules must be slightly water-soluble in order to pass through a mucus layer in our noses and reach our smell receptors. Again you will not smell urine if these molecules cannot reach your olfactory (smell) receptors.
3. These molecules must be lipid soluble because olfactory cilia are composed primarily of lipid material. Once again the same theory if the molecule cannot reach the sensors to trigger them and detect the smell then it is gone.
4. There has to be a sufficient number of these odorous molecules and they have to come in contact with the receptors for a minimum length of time for our noses to detect them.
You can see there are opportunities with each of the conditions to stop the smell. It should be said, that with smells there is also a possibility of a psychological issue to deal with. Our minds will play tricks on us and it can bring back smells to our memory that are as real as any smell that actually comes through the receptors in our noses. In these cases changing or stopping the molecules will not stop the smell. This then has to be approached from the psychological angle. I am not going to go into that here.
There are several very good chemicals on the market that stop or eliminate odors at different points in this process and they do it in different ways. You can read about the different methods these chemicals use to do this here. Types of chemicals.
1 photo credit: bradleygee
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