Finding Pet Urine Spray
You can simply scan your home and find cat and dog spraying locations by using a quality blacklight in a darkened room. Under fluorescent blacklight, cat spray glows. Your cat or dog may be spraying in many locations that you are unaware of. This will allow you to neutralize lingering odors and limit serious cat urine damage.
First, know what you are looking for. Most cat spraying involves one or more splats on a vertical surface at
approximately nose height of the spraying cat, to attact the attention of other cats.
Second, get a UV flashlight. The effectiveness of newer UV LED flashlights varies greatly. Many will not illuminate urine as well as advertised.
To recognize some cat territorial marking spots, look for an obvious "splat and drip" spray pattern (left). Depending upon the surface, cat urine spray can be faint and hard to distinguish from other organic substances and objects that also glow under black light. Spraying on some fabrics may be hard to see.
When scanning entire rooms for cats look at about 6 to 12" height above the floor around the perimeter of the room, including doors and windows/windowsills, blinds, and on all furniture.
Neutered or spayed felines generally spray less, as cats will spray for breeding reasons. Spraying problems are typically proportional to the number of cats sharing the same space. Approximately 10% of all neutered adult males and 5% of all spayed adult females habitually, even after being spayed or neutered
