The pet stains I am describing here are stains from pet urine. I will focus specifically on those. I am not addressing urine odor in this post just the stain.
Many times there is no visible stain associated with urine. However when the stains are visible, what you will likely have is one of the following:
- Yellowish stain from the urochrome in the pet urine. This can be cleaned and removed.
- A stain left that is just the outline of where the urine ended, similar to a water stain outline. The stain that is left is at the edge of the moisture from the urine. The center of the spot has no visible stain. This can be cleaned and removed.
- A spot or stain that looks like any other circular dirty spot on the carpet or other fabric. This is from dust and dirt sticking to the urine residue in the fibers. This can be cleaned and removed.
- The most difficult situation with pet stains is when the concentrated alkaline has created color loss. The urine stain has actually faded the dyes in the fabric. This cannot be corrected by cleaning. Dying the fabric and restoring the color can correct this in some cases. Patching the carpet (if your pet stain is in carpet) can be a solution. The last resort is to replace the affected item.
Pet stains and stains in general are not always a result of one problem. You may have several things contributing at the same time. In many cases you need to address the items one at a time.