How To Get That Dreaded Dog Pee Smell Out Of Your Carpet (2024)

Act quickly! Your carpet is absorbent.

It’s all fun and games until the dog pees in on your carpet. And then probably keeps peeing on your carpet time after time, because that’s what dogs do.

It seems redundant to us, but doggos sure love to mark their territory. And once they’ve got that designated pee spot, they love to keep peeing on it over and over. Creatures of habit. And acute smell. Anyway, they’re lucky they’re cute.

So if you’re having a dog pee-mergency, follow our guidelines below to clean your carpet and neutralize that stinky dog urine.

For a fresh dog urine stain:

Act quickly to help prevent dog urine from smelling up your carpet.

For an old dog urine stain:

We all know that familiar stale dog urine smell coming from the carpet.

• You may need to get on all fours yourself to locate the dog urine smell in your carpet. Your sniffer will know when you’ve found it. Now, assess the stain.
• For a more mild urine stain: Add a pinch of mild dish soap with warm water until sudsy and pour onto the urine stain, then blot the carpet with a rag or paper towel until the stain is gone.
• For a more resilient urine stain:
  1. Step 1 - Soak a rag in a mixture of vinegar and water (1:1 ratio) and blot the stain on your carpet.
  2. Step 2 - If the stain persists, pour a bit of the vinegar and water solution directly on the stain, scrub with a scrub brush and blot dry. Sprinkle a bit of extra baking soda onto the pee stain to neutralize both the pee smell and the vinegar smell.
  3. Step 3 - Mix a pinch of dish soap with ½ cup of hydrogen peroxide, pour onto the carpet stain and continue to scrub with a scrub brush.
  4. Step 4 - Then pat the stained area dry.

Hopefully, this does the trick of getting that dog pee smell out of your carpet, while neutralizing the scents enough that your pup doesn’t want to pee in this spot again. You can also purchase pet odor neutralizers to apply once the stain has dried.

If you can smell dog urine but can’t seem to find it:

If your sniffer’s not working, you’re in luck – try a blacklight to identify where that smelly dog urine in your carpet is coming from.

• Use a blacklight to track down the dog pee spots on your carpet. Turn off all other lights and hold the blacklight a couple of feet from the floor. Dog pee stains will show up under the blacklight as dull green or yellow. To confirm the stain is indeed dog pee, sorry, but you’ll have to use the smell test. Mark stains with tape and follow dog pee stain removal tips above.

If this all sounds like way too much work that’s above your paygrade, hire a carpet cleaning service and take yourself and your pup out for a nice long walk while they’re at your house. It’s a two-fer: You and your doggo get out of the house while the professionals get the dog pee smell out of your carpet.