What is exactly in pet urine?

Pet urine consists of bacteria, hormones, ammonia, and uric acid. What exactly is in uric acid? Uric acid is a by product of the bodies’ metabolism. Urine releases toxins in the body, and it’s quite normal for pet urine to smell pungent, especially cat urine. Cat urine just has that “smell” that makes you absolutely sick to your stomach. Cat’s usually do not drink as much water as dogs, which makes their urine more concentrated.

Why does it smell so bad?

When pet urine dries the urea is broken down by bacteria. This is what causes that overpowering, foul ammonia smell. In the first stage, bacteria will decompose the urea and give off the distinctive ammonia smell we are all familiar along with ketones, sulfides, phenols, and volatile organic acids and more. The second stage of the decomposition process releases mercaptans and thiols that has a smell similar to skunk spray. It’s this mixture of chemicals that gives urine it’s distinctive pungent smell we so desperately need to eliminate!

If you do not kill all of the bacteria from the leftover spots, you still have odor. In order to get rid of the pet odor, it’s an absolute must to eliminate all the bacteria.

Why is it so difficult to eliminate?

This is simply due to the fact that it is not an easy process to completely and 100% effectively clean up the stain. Many people think that just spraying a store bought cleaner, and wiping it up with a rag will get the job done. Remember… it’s never easy when cleaning up pet urine, and it’s also a lengthy process. Stains seen on the top surface of your carpet have been pulled down into the pad due to gravity, and are 50% larger underneath. When there are multiple urine deposits on top of each other, they not only compound the urine saturation issue, but cause numerous odors on top of each other. When there is humidity, heat, or failed attempts at cleaning, bacteria will grow and makes the smells 100% worse.

The most crucial thing when cleaning up pet urine stains is to get as much of the pet urine out of the carpet as possible. Odor fighting cleaning chemicals will not work if there’s urine in your carpet, padding and flooring. When a dog has an accident in your house, the liquid enters the carpet, than soaks down and spreads. The size of the spot you can see is much smaller than the size of the spot under the carpet, on the floor and padding. You’ve got to clean beneath the service, and get to the sub floor and padding. The padding is usually not salvageable when urine has soaked into it, it must be taken out and replaced.

It is not impossible to clean up and get rid of pet urine and odor. With patience and proper understanding, it greatly increases your chances of successfully cleaning up the pet urine and killing the bacteria. Food for thought, understanding the decomposition process is as important as the stain removal process itself!