Reporting, Recording and Relaying - But Always Telling It As I See It

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Dog Urine and the BP Fix

The following is a side by side comparison of two remedies for a particular scenario. A case study if you will. First, I will present the problem, and then I will present two solutions. I invite you to vote and/or comment on which one seems more practical.


SCENARIO: Our dog, Zeke, the bastard son of a mongrel bitch is fourteen and a half years old. As such, he is occasionally prone to accidents in the house. As much as we would, obviously, wish this wouldn’t happen, his equipment, though long and well serving, is not always reliable. Today, in the living room, I found two things; 1) the remnants of a bologna container, and 2) a urine stain on the carpet. The container was tossed (again) in the recycle container but the urine stain is what this case study is about (Isn’t that always the case?)

Solution 1: Knowing there is always a risk of this happening, we do our best to get Zeke outside as frequently as possible in hopes of mitigating the risk of peeing in the house. However, sometimes the forces at work mean 1) we aren’t home at the exact time he has to pee, or 2) he doesn’t realize it until it is too late. (Don’t laugh, adult diapers are a million dollar industry.) This being the case, we always keep a bottle of Woolite Pet Cleaner on hand. When I saw the stain, I immediately blotted as much of the urine out of the carpet as I could, doused the area with the Woolite, and patted/blotted the stain. Fix time, three and a half minutes.

Solution 2: Though I know Zeke peeing in the house remains a real possibility, I am willing to assume that risk and hope that even if he does, he will somehow pee directly into the floor drain in the laundry room. When I saw today that he peed on the carpet, my first response was to say it was not that bad and that I hadn’t been properly informed of the risks of this actually happening. I am going to ignore the stain at this point and spend the next several months looking for an engineering fix that may or may not have ever been tested. I tell my wife that the stain, though unsightly, will eventually dry and fade…but not completely. Months and maybe years from now there will be an uneven dark circle on the carpet, but since no one really sits on the floor in that exact spot, what real future problem does it present? In the meantime, still ignoring the stain, I insist that I am working with the best and brightest our country has to offer, because I need to know whose ass to kick. After several months of focus groups and think tanks, the overwhelming results seem, somehow, to point to the fact that I was negligent. By this time, however, I am hoping the boys decide to repaint my car with some spray paint they found in the woods* thus drawing attention completely away from my previous lack of judgment.

Simple right? Action or inaction? My son, 12, asked me this exact question two days ago, “Why isn’t anybody doing anything about the oil?”

(* This derives from a real life situation…the kids did find spray paint in the woods when they were younger and painted my garage door, the neighbor’s garage door and the neighbors mailbox.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why does no one ever respond to your funny, witty, down to earth blogs?...I know you get a lot of reads...The pee blog was hilarious!..I had my dining room carpet cleaned last year, and the company came in with a 'piss detector'...fucking canine piss everywhere, so they had to put some enzyme eating shit for a couple of days, before they could clean the carpet...have a great day! signed 'C', cuz I know you know who I am!!!!!!

hotfire said...

C...not sure, but glad you do! This has proven cheaper than therapy. I have thought about chargin myself a deductable! Funny thing is, at the first sign the cat was having issues, we put him down (there was more to it than that, but you get the idea) I would tap into my 401(k) for my dog!

Anonymous said...

:) is all I can say!

Kristine said...

Dave, any of that toddler bed cleaner stuff works too--attacks the enzyme in urine. Pour it on and never visit it again.
Your friend, Heloise
p.s. Am sort of confused as to why a major company whose initial ends in pee would not have a plan as to what to do if a leak occurs?