<p>I am a soft touch when it coems to dogs, especially the breed I had.</p>
<p>I agree with BB, you are a saint. Years ago when we were all in the thick of mothering and being called upon to help out at school and elsewhere, a friend of mine told me about keeping an excuse list next to the phone. It was a creative list of reasons you couldn’t show up with brownies first thing the next morning, or make angel costumes for the play day after tomorrow. I don’t think my friend really had such a list but I loved the concept. And my favorite item on the list was “I’m sorry, I don’t have an oven.”</p>
<p>I’m sorry, I don’t have an oven is excellent. </p>
<p>I have a close friend who is a hugely successful excecutive and she used to say, when asked to head up committees and whatnot, “I’m not much of a leader, but I’d be happy to pitch in and do a little bit of the grunt work when I have time.”</p>
<p>LOL> She’s a worldclass leader. :p</p>
<p>After the umpteenth call to “volunteer” for something at school with no real reason to say no, I was a really bad person. I had recently completed treatment for breast cancer, and between us chickens, I was feeling fine. The woman on the phone would not take no for an answer, so I said, " Sorry, I am in the middle of dealing with breast cancer and really don’t have the time." The woman was speechless, and I never hear from the big fundraising group the rest of the year! I always did things for the kids classroom, but this was a big commitment, and I had not interest in calling parents school wide and telling them how much money they should donate. Seems the school had a target depending on what the parents job was, and I really didn’t like that at all. Just because a parent was an MD, they had an amount they should donate.</p>
<p>Make sure the Nature’s Miracle gets down into the pad also; that is where the odor is. You may have to really pour it on, not just spray it. Reapply again in a week after the carpet drys. If you can put a fan on the area after you clean, that will also help.</p>
<p>Blot the Nature’s Miracle after you staturate the pad. Clean towels, stand on the to really blot out the stain. And a fan is a great idea.</p>
<p>Yes, do use the towels. You should have seen me when we were house training the puppy. We had Nature’s Miracle on both levels of the house along with old white towels and paper towels. I would use my slip on hiking shoes to stand on the paper towels to wick up the pee first, and then spray the NM, clean and then use the white towels to blot up the excess NM. </p>
<p>My carpet cleaner change his machine and after the last yearly cleaning by him, all the urine stains reappeared! I was livid, but he came back and used a different cleaner and got them all out. He said this was because I didn’t get all the urine out, so his machine pulled it back to the top. I now pour the NM on the few stains we might get, which isn’t often unless someone has a UTI!</p>
<p>She must have peed somewhere in the main hall area, because there is a faint smell, but we couldnt find anything on the stairs, the rug at the door or the runner in the hall. So fat the upstairs seems to smell ok.</p>
<p>If I pour natures miracle into the carpet down to the pad, wont it get mildew-y?</p>
<p>The mom picked her up about 10 min late this morning and said they got in at 3 am. I was tempted to tell her we were up at 5 (my DH had a flight at 7:30) and we had to take the dog out then too (she gave us “the look” and we didn’t want another accident), but I was not likely to get much sympathy.</p>
<p>OK- small confession-- wee went out last night with friends whose dog got attacked by a neighbor’s dog Friday night and had to have emergency surgery. I brought some doggy treats to give to their dog as a “get well” gift. Yup- I pilfered the treats from our doggie houseguest’s stash :)</p>
<p>jym, in my experience, NM does not leave mildewy residues when it dries. If all attempts to clean the smell out with NM fail, you can try what worked for me when our kitten peed on our expensive mattress (thanks, hubby, for trying to snuggle with the furball in our bed!): soaking the spot with a dilute solution of Oxiclean (I did try NM first, but that cat’s urine was too potent!). Just make sure that your carpets do not get discolored with Oxiclean. There is also SpotShot, but it works best for removing barf. As you can see, I’m fairly well skilled at pet accident removal. :)</p>
<p>Dried pet “accidents” can be detected with a black light:</p>
<p>[How</a> to Detect Carpet Pet Stains | eHow.com](<a href=“http://www.ehow.com/how_7019107_detect-carpet-pet-stains.html]How”>http://www.ehow.com/how_7019107_detect-carpet-pet-stains.html)</p>
<p>Don’t use the black light unless you can handle what you find 
Over the years in this house we have had 2 cats and 4 dogs; the black light also shows spit up stains as well as other stains that you didn’t know you have. Just for fun I used the black light after a professional carpet cleaning, and while the lint didn’t show up, everything else did!</p>
<p>Cat urine is next to impossible to get rid of. My male cat was missing the litter box for a long time, and because this was in an unused room, I didn’t really notice. I just assumed the smell was the litter box. We had to finally replace the carpet as there was still a hint of odor when you walked into the room, long after the cats were no longer with us.</p>
<p>I don’t think the NM will cause a mildew smell, but I would use a fan on the area if possible.</p>
<p>The weirdest thing-- the laundry room, where we kept her food and water dish, had a urine smell. I washed the linoleum floor three times with NS, and finally opened a bottle of ammonia to let the vapors waft (when the dog want around). The room is small. Maybe something got under the washer or dryer?</p>
<p>Coem to think of it … I am a saint!! Who would put up with this???</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>^^ ;)</p>
<p>Amazingly, the Oxiclean solution did the trick for me. My nose is like a GC/MS and can detect tiniest traces of smells. I was so shocked when I was not able to smell anything after the treatment! For dog pee, NM has always worked in our house.</p>
<p>Also–get out all of those old year books of your and your H’s and put a white towel down and then load up a pile of books and leave overnight. This wickes the pee up from the pad. Also, stand on them --it is fun and effective. Then put a fan on it after you take the books off and waste a few hours looking through your HS year book.</p>
<p>We don’t use high school and college yearbooks, we use our Worldbook Encyclopedia’s Yearbooks They don’t get much use anymore, so at least I at least take a few down off the shelf a year! Actually, we have a spot in a hallway where the roof leaks sometimes. After the carpet cleaning, we use the towels and books to wick the water from the carpet cleaning. It really helps keep the mildew or what ever the black spots are from coming back. Just remember to change out the towel a few times.</p>
<p>So THATS what we should have done with the old World book encyclopedias that were at my late dad’s house…</p>
<p>dehumidifiers also work. fwiw Not to knock the old book version of the world book or anything… ;)</p>
<p>Not to totally side track this thread, but when my husband pulled out a World Book the other day while my daughter was in town visiting, she wanted to know why in the world he would be using it. He explained he was looking at a map; she explained that the internet had all the maps you could want! Sometimes you just need to feel the pages :)</p>
<p>Another update:
The owner of the dog just stopped by to bring a little thank-you gift, and informed me that she finally decided, after I let her know the dog was coughing, lethargic at times and had the accidents, to take her back to the vet. The dog is now on a diuretic and a heart medicine and, according to the owner, was almost instantly much more energetic and happy than she had been, and is not coughing. She thanked me for my gentle persistence in encouring them to check out her heart status! Yay!</p>
<p>As an aside, I went to a neighbors for lunch yesterday. Their next door neighbor’s golden was standing at the top of the driveway with the newspaper in her mouth! It was so cute I took a photo! I want to dog-sit for this dog!</p>
<p>*** did this work? its the photo <a href=“http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/050vcf.jpg/[/url]”>http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/050vcf.jpg/</a></p>
![http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/050vcf.jpg/[/url]](http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/050vcf.jpg/%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>jym, you are a perfect doggie mom! I’m glad to hear that the dog is doing much better - kudos to you for encouraging the owners to visit the vet.</p>
<p>(And your neighbor’s doggie is so cute. :))</p>
<p>I really appreciate that you gave us the end of the story. You are the perfect dog sitter.</p>
<p>Thanks, bb and oregon101. My carpets are a little unhappy with me, but c’est la vie :)</p>