Over the course of your dogs life, there are quite a few stages and situations where “accidents” might happen indoors. If you have ever had a puppy, you know what a long and arduous journey housebreaking can be! Along the way you’ll end up with plenty of accidents indoors which can lead to unpleasant odors and stains, especially if they go unnoticed for some time. When you’re dealing with tough dog urine, you need a top dog urine remover product to product your home!
Regardless of the cleaner you end up using, here’s a couple tips for making the clean up as easy as possible.
- Get your puppy outside immediately. You need to reinforce that you puppy only goes to the bathroom outside, so as soon as you spot him starting to go indoors, rush him outside and deal with the cleanup later.
- Have gloves on hand. Especially if you need to dispose of any solids and use paper towels, you’re going to want a set of disposable gloves readily available.
- Clean up as much as possible before using a cleaning product. Be sure to soak up as much of the urine as possible before you move on to using a cleaner, it will make the cleaner much more effective.
- Keep a plastic bag nearby for your garbage. Rather than running your messy paper towels to your garbage can, bring a small plastic bag with you to the site of the stain.
- Consider blocking off carpeted areas. One way to make cleanup a bit easier is to use a dog gate to block your puppy from carpeted areas. Keeping them on hard surfaces makes it easier to get to accidents before they soak or stain.
Another common situation that can happen is you have a friends dog over, and that dog decides to mark in your house. To make matters worse, your dog will smell the scent and want to cover it with their own – more dog pee!
In these situations, it’s really important that you fully remove all traces of the scent, or else dogs will continue to mark. This is where a high-quality dog odor eliminator comes in.
Finally, older dogs can sometimes have a harder time holding their bladder, leading to more accidents.
The Ultimate Dog Pee Removal Kit
This article has been so popular, I decided to add a quick reference of the tools I use for dog urine and other pet stains around my house. Here’s everything you could possibly need to get your carpets back to “like new” shape after an accident.
Top Dog Urine Stain and Odor Removers
Back in the day you used to use any generic home cleaning product to try to treat pet stains, but no longer. Today, we have specially formulated products designed to break down the stains and odors and things are literally down to a science! Powerful enzymes are used which rapidly breakdown the stains and odor, resulting in a clean house. You can also get a specialized pet odor candle which will help take care of any lingering smells.
Here are our top picks for the best dog urine cleaning products available on the market today.
Rocco & Roxie Professional Strength Stain & Odor Eliminator
- CERTIFIED GENTLE AND SAFE Chlorine free and color safe. Safe to use around pets and children. No...
- ELIMINATES STAINS, ODORS AND RESIDUE If it’s gross, it’s gone. Not just the stain, but the stink....
- EVERY SURFACE, EVERY TIME For use on carpets, floors, furniture, clothing, litter boxes, kennels,...
Rocco & Roxie is a family owned and operated pet product brand that truly understands the needs of pet owners. Their Stain & Odor Eliminator spray is formulated to tackle any kinds of stains that your pets might create.
This cleaner is safe for use with any and all surfaces. It is certified by the Carpet and Rug Institute to not cause staining or color damage to your fabrics, which is a rare feat for cleaning products. The bio-enzymatic formula is pet and child safe and fully removes both the stain and stink!
Rocce & Roxie offer a 100% satisfaction guarentee, offering a full refund if the product doesn’t perform up to your expectations.
Nature’s Miracle Advanced Formula Spray
- FOR SEVERE DOG MESSES: Powerful enzymatic formula works to eliminate tough stains and odors from dog...
- LIGHT FRESH SCENT: Dog odor control formula gets your home smelling clean again.
- ENZYMATIC FORMULA: Continues working as long as any bio-based mess is still present.
Nature’s Miracle is an extremely trusted brand in the pet supplies world, and there products are available just about anywhere pet supplies are sold.
Their Advanced Formula has enzymes that breakdown stains and odors, and can even work on old, deep-set stains. You can use it on carpets, hard surfaces, clothing, kennels, car seats, and anywhere else your pet may cause a stain.
Bissell Enzyme Action Pet Stain and Stink Remover
- Specially designed for tough pet stains such as urine, feces and other accidents
- Enzyme action continues cleaning all the way to the base
- Patented odor technology
Bissell knows a thing or two about cleaning! Their Stain and Stink Remover has patented odor technology and enzyme action that completely destroys and removes odors that would cause your dog to mark again.
Safe for pets and all the surfaces around your home, be sure to check this cleaner out.
How to Find and Fully Remove Stains and Odors
Sometimes it can be hard to tell if a stain is fully cleaned up or not, especially on darker flooring. Using a generic cleaning product on a stain will often leave traces behind – and we can prove it!
By using a cheap UV flashlight like the one seen below, you can turn out the lights and find remnants of stains around your home. The results might shock you!
Often times, people find stains with their blacklight that they thought was previously cleaned up. Once they use one of the pet products below, they find all traces of the stain truly disappear!
A UV blacklight can also be useful for finding the source of an odor if it’s cause from pet stains without having to get down on your hands and knees to sniff around.
- Find invisible stains: UV flashlight helps detect food stains and pet urine stains on rugs, carpets, and...
- Versatile use: authenticate currency and official documents like drivers licenses or identify unwanted...
- Perfect for outside use such as finding scorpions and minerals! Should used with 3xAA Standard Alkaline...
Going Deep with a Carpet Cleaner
Some people may want an even more comprehensive solution to pet stain issues. If you’re looking to really remove all traces of stains and leave no doubts, then a carpet cleaner is certainly what you want.
I personally use the Hoover Power Scrub Elite Pet model, as it’s Hoover’s most thorough carpet cleaner designed with pet stains in mind. I have to say, running this vacuum over your carpets will change the way you view your house! My carpets were less than a year old and the amount of dirty, filthy water that came out of them was unbelievable!
The important thing though is it did save the rug I had that need cleaning, so even though this was one of the pricier carpet cleaners, I felt that it was well worth the money.
The carpet cleaner works like this –
- Load clean water and cleaning detergent into the top resevoir
- Run the vacuum over your carpet, squeezing the trigger on the handle to dispense water and cleaning solution
- Slowly run the vacuum over the wet spots, allowing it to suck up the moisture back into the dirty water tank
- The vacuum has scrubbing brushes that pull up dirt and all kinds of pet hair, and it heats the carpet to help it dry faster
This model also comes with an 8-food hose that you can connect to it to “spot treat” areas that need it. It works just like the main vacuum in that it can dispense water/cleaning solution and vacuum up the moisture. This is ideal for furniture like couches that you can’t run a vacuum on easily.
It should be noted that carpet cleaners work best when you run a regular vacuum first, to suck up all that pet hair and debris. We have a guide on the best vacuums for pet hair that you should start with!
Looking for a Smaller Carpet Cleaner?
If you’re looking for a cheaper carpet cleaner option or maybe just one that’s smaller, specifically for spot treating accidents, then Hoover has you covered with their Spot Cleaner.
- LIGHTWEIGHT: Achieve ultimate portability with this lightweight design to reach and remove stains...
- CONVENIENT DEEP CLEAN: Spray, scrub, and remove anything from pet messes to everyday mishaps
- LONGER REACH: Easily reach spots and stains on carpet, upholstery, stairs and more with the 5feet hose
This Spot Cleaner works pretty similar to the Carpet Cleaner I mentioned above. It won’t have as much suction power, but it is a lot easier to carry around and store so for many people the trade-off is worthwhile.
I would sooo love to be able to get a 100% true answer to questions that I Google! Case in point, this website promotes a heated carpet shampooer to remove pet urine whereas other web site claim that it’s an absolute No No to use heat when trying to remove the pet urine from your carpet! Heat causes the Crystal’s in the urine to adhere to carpet fibers. They advise using an Extractor or Wet Vac to suck out the urine that’s soaked into the pad. Makes sense to me. But WHO has the Real answer?!