To clean a cowhide rug with dog urine is a two-step process. This should not take too long and should not be a difficult task.
You will need to vacuum the cowhide rug and then wash it as set out below.
Before you start to clean a cowhide rug with dog urine you should prepare the following items.
- Bottle of dish soap
- Disposable gloves
- Wet vac with two attachments (wide spade and detail nozzle)
- Peroxide
- Bowl
- Sponge
Vaccum
To start the process to clean a cowhide rug with dog urine vacuum down the cowhide rug with the wide spade detail attachment.
The reason why you should use this particular attachment is that it has got an open spade.
When you vacuum the cowhide rug down, the fibers of the rug are going to go into the spade and allow the airflow to pick up the debris in the rug and suck it into the vacuum cleaner.
Once you have vacuumed as much debris as possible it is time to prepare the cleaning solution.
Washing
Preparation
The next step in the process to clean a cowhide rug with dog urine is to wash the cowhide rug.
Make sure that you wear gloves as you do not want to get your hands directly onto the urine.
Pour two or three drops of dish soap into 100mls of water. Take a sponge and give it a little stir around.
Cleaning
Take the cleaning solution that you have just mixed up and start washing the rug down. It is best to work on one small area of the rug at a time.
After you have washed down the rug, use your wet vac together with the detail nozzle to vacuum out the water from the rug.
Because the cowhide rug is an animal hide which is a protein fiber, its hair is quite resistant to soiling.
But if you do have any stains in your cowhide rug that you want to treat, just use a little bit more solution and work it into the rug.
You want to get it a little bit wetter and then keep sucking it out with the wet vac.
So far we have discussed cleaning the cowhide rug from mild dog urine stains. This method can also be used for just simply cleaning the rug on a regular basis.
Clean A Cowhide Rug With Dog Urine
If the above steps do not clean a cowhide rug with dog urine because the urine is too entrenched in the cowhide rug then you will need to mix up some peroxide in the cleaning solution to start dealing with the urine.
Firstly you should turn over the rug and you will notice areas of staining. That is the area where the urine is. The urine chemically burns the fibers as it denatures and it yellows the rug on the back of the leather.
Next, add about 50ml or so of peroxide into the cleaning solution.
Then start sponging that onto the staining to neutralize the urine odor. The staining itself will probably not go away as the rug has been damaged by the urine, but at least you will be getting rid of the odor.
You should not be shy with the amount of solution that you work into the rug as in the next step you will suck out the excess liquid with the wet vac.
After leaving the peroxide solution on the rug for about 20 minutes use the wet vac to extract the excess moisture out and then leave the rug to air dry.
Once the back of the rug is dry you should turn the rug onto its face. Try to work out approximately where the urine stain is. Then treat the front with the peroxide solution in the same manner that you did on the rear side of the rug.
Take a generous amount of the cleaning solution and brush it in with the grain of the animal hide. This means to brush the solution in the direction that the hair is going. The peroxide is going to neutralize the urine out of the rug
Again leave to sit for 20 minutes and then vacuum off with the wet vat.
One thing to note is that you want to put the same amount of solution that you think the animal may have peed into the rug.
So if it is cat pee it’s going to be a pretty small amount but if you’ve got a dog it’s going to be a little bit larger.
So that is how you would clean a cowhide rug with dog urine. If you have a cowhide rug that is not dirty from dog urine and you want to clean it, check our guide, on how to clean a cowhide rug
Can you hose down a cowhide rug?
No. You should not oversaturate a cowhide rug as this will very likely damage the rug. When you clean it with water as described above only use small amounts of water on the affected areas.
How to remove the smell from a cowhide rug?
If you are looking to remove smell from cowhide rug you could buy a carpet deodorizer and apply it to the cowhide rug in accordance with the instructions of the product.