Sharing your home with pets might have little or no inconveniences as they are not difficult to maintain, but just like a child, they can cause a mess. Training your pets is fine, but they may accidentally do some things; one of those things includes urinating on your floors. You need to know how to clean dog pee off hardwood floors?

Imagine being stuck with a stinky urine stain on your beautiful hardwood. Aside from being stinky, pet mess can leave marks on wherever it is done, so the question is how to clean dog pee off hardwood floors. No matter how well you have trained your dog and how much you keep to potty schedule or use a particular area, sometimes accidental peeing happens. 

Removing a dog pee or any pet can be daunting; however, prompt actions to ensure that the dog’s urine doesn’t leave a lasting stink or mark should occur. If urine soaks in the hardwood, repairing it might be difficult, and we know that hardwoods repair comes at a very prohibitive cost.

Can dog pee damage hardwood flooring?

Yes, urine can penetrate and affect both sealed and unsealed hardwood floors. It goes down into the subfloor to cause damage, the damage may not be visible as it might not affect the structure of the wooden floor, but the urine will leave stains and stink.

Dog’s urine soaked into the floor may leave a permanent stain, and the moisture in the pee can attract mildew and mould to start growing on the floor. The best way to avoid your dog peeing on the hardwood floor is to supervise it, frequent potty breaks, allow the dog to go on walks, and ensure that he doesn’t go close to the areas where you have hardwood floors. 

You can apply sealant on the hardwood floor; it will guard against damage and make the floor easier to clean, scratches on the hardwood can make it more vulnerable to absorption of moisture; if there are cracks or scratches on the wood, moisture will enter through it. 

Using sealants will help prevent this by creating an impermeable layer so that the wood underneath will not be affected by moisture. This sealant will not necessarily prevent scratches, but those scratches will be on the impermeable layer and not directly on the wood. 

Use polyurethane on the finished floor; the thicker the coat, the more the protection on your hardwood; ensure that you allow one layer to dry, cure and harden well before applying another coat. This will optimize the protection on the wood. It is important to note that applying a sealant will not prevent your dog’s urine from penetrating the wood if the urine is left for long and ends up drying. 

Once your dog pees on the floor, it is important to clean immediately to prevent the urine from getting into the wood. Suppose you don’t like the appearance of polyurethane sealants on your hardwood floor. In that case, as polyurethane has a way of leaving a plastic-like appearance on the wood’s surface, you will see the wood.

Still, the reflection might not be as natural as you may want it, so you can consider applying penetrating oil; this oil does not cover the surface of the floor. It goes into the wood floor, strengthens the wood, and gives it a natural look. Maintaining a floor with penetrating hardwood finishing is quite easy as only the affected area will be focused on.

If you have area rugs on your hardwood flooring, you may not easily know if there’s been an accident on it. Untreated accidents lead to discoloration, urine stains, odours that are very difficult to remove.

Urine can permanently damage the floor’s coating and can be very expensive to repair. One of the best things to use waterproof rug pads under the area rugs, which prevents dog accidents from seeping down into the woods. 

Asides from being beneficial because of urine accidents, waterproof rug pads help prevent general pet damage. It is easier if the pee is on a carpet as you probably would have the cleaning tools and easily get it off.

All you need do is place a thick layer of paper towels over the urine spot and, if possible under it, cover with a thick newspaper, allow it to absorb the urine, then remove all the papers and rinse the area with water. 

The towel will stink a lot; it shows that you have absorbed as much urine and the odour. You have tried to absorb the urine; what is next? It would be best if you tried to completely remove the odour too.

What you need is baking soda: Spread baking soda evenly on the spot, let it stay overnight, then clean it away. You may need to do this more than once, as many times as the odour is gone. Another thing to use is vinegar: mix vinegar with water and baking soda, then spray on the stain. Let it stay for a while, then clean it up with towels until it is clean.

Sometimes, you don’t notice a dog’s pee until it is dried off, it is harder to remove the stains, but there are effective methods to removing the stain. The first thing is to rinse the area with water and then blot it out until the place is clean. Some chemicals can be used to get the smell out, including enzymatic cleaners that work on a molecular level to break down and remove the odours and stain.

Stains on Hardwoods floor, what to do?

There are various homemade remedies for removing black urine stains and odours caused by dogs from your floor. Hydrogen peroxide, vinegar, baking soda, or other stain removing chemicals can be used. Once your dog messes up your hardwood floor, the next thing is to act fast. 

What do you need to do first? 

• Place a thick wad of paper towels or dish towels on the mess; you can stand on the towel for a while to quicken the urine absorption; you continue this process until you get the place dried. Urine ordinarily saturates the woods, so it is hard to get urine odour off the hardwood floors, but you can try a few methods.

This method is similar to the one used to remove the stench odour from the carpet—mix vinegar with water. Vinegar kills most germs/ bacteria in the dog’s urine.

• Mix vinegar with water, apply the solution to the stained area, let it stay for a while, and then wipe it off with a clean towel. If you are concerned about the effect of vinegar on your floor, you can try diluting the vinegar with enough water and testing the solution on water. 

• If the vinegar smell is too strong, you may decide to add some grapefruit oil into the solution to serve as a natural deodorant for odour removal. You can scrub the area on the hardwood where you have applied the solution to.

• If the odour lingers, sprinkle baking soda on the affected area while it is damp, let it stay for a while then clean it. Enzyme-based stain removal can be used, but it is safe to test first on a small area not to damage your wood.

• If you notice that your dog pees in a particular area of your house, you may need to put a pet-friendly flooring material in that area to protect it from scratches and urine.

Hydrogen Peroxide on Hardwood floor

People ask whether I can use hydrogen peroxide to clean my hardwood floors?

Yes, you can. Hydrogen peroxide works well to sanitize and clean the wooden floors; it has lots of functions, including removing dirt from the wood surface, sanitizing the hardwood surface, removing stubborn stains, and lightening dark spots.

1. Wipe off the urine from the floor, then spray hydrogen peroxide on the affected area and cover with a piece of cloth soaked in hydrogen peroxide for about 15-20 minutes. You may need to repeat the process to completely get rid of the stain and stench.
2. Another method is using enzyme chemicals to remove stains and odours from the floor. Ensure that the room or space is well ventilated; open your windows to air the house and ensure to have an air purifier.
3. Try always to find out overlooked dog accidents and clean up immediately. Frequently change your air filter. Use air fresheners around the affected area.

Final thoughts

Regardless of what your pet has messed upon, you need to take prompt actions. The faster you get to it and work on it, the easier it is to completely get the stain and odour off completely. If you do not completely clean up the place, your dog might find the place and decide to make it the new spot to pee on.

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