Sunday, February 27, 2005

Turns out that Annie has been piddling on the carpet by the stairs that lead up from the basement - her MO is to piddle within the first 5 minutes of my departure, but I thought she was over that habit with the move. Not so, unfortunately. I used to put her on the bed anytime I left home because she’s old enough now that she won’t jump down on her own. But I worried about her kidneys because that also meant no water intake on a long workday. Since she’s adopted the large ottoman as her new favorite sleeping place, that’s where I’ve been leaving her in the mornings.

Because of the lighting and odd shadows down here, it was hard to see the spots in the carpet, but I smelled the evidence. So the other day when I was working at home, I took some time to soak the area with Oxyclean. This is the stuff that I’ve found works the best on pet stains. Normally this process involves a bucket of Oxyclean-laden warm water and a pile of towels. I douse the area then use the towels to soak up the water. This is what I did and the towels confirmed my suspicions.

On a side note, I did buy some Home Alone Pads back when we were in the apartment. But she pushed them out of the way. However, I did put a few down in the newly cleaned area on Friday morning and she actually piddled on one! So those will go down on the floor daily now.

OK, getting back to the cleaning - I was still smelling urine the past couple of days. Fortunately, ECD has an upright carpet cleaner, so I dragged it downstairs this morning and spent quite a while going over the area. But ECD was down here about an hour ago and she said she could still smell it. It wasn’t as pungent, but I could too. *sigh*

I just finished round three - this time a combo of the usual douse with Oxyclean then going over it with the carpet cleaner to suck up the water. Much better results - the discarded water was gross, gross, gross. I’ve laid out towels on the wet area and will let it be for a couple more days. Then I’ll give it another go.

Sometimes I wonder if the dog is worth all this work.