The title says it all. Maybe some of you have heard about the benefits of having a black light as a pet owner. Whether you have a cat or a dog, it’s probably a good idea to get yourself a good portable black light for spotting the inevitable stain that may (and will) find it’s way into your life. If you are a pet owner, there are several uses for an ultra-violet black light. None of them can come close to the reason of pet stains. Black lights allow you to see pet pee stains. Not just pee stains either. Black lights make other stains stick out as well; like vomit stains, poop stains, snot stains, and blood stains top the list.
Let’s say, you don’t know if your pet is leaving pee stains around the house or not and maybe you suspect something because you smell a hint of pee every now and again but still can’t nail it down. You’d be hard pressed to find a better way of finding that out than by getting out a black light.
Yep. That’s right. Those ultra-violet lights that lit up your “Velvet Elvis” and “Velvet Zeppelin” posters. The ultra violet light reflects off the pee stain or bodily fluid in a light bright purple that sticks out like a sore thumb.
Black lights have come a long way since the long fluorescent tubes that had to be mounted in the equally awkward ballast boxes that held them. Back in the day, you’re attached to a two or three foot cord on the light, which isn’t long enough to see anything except what’s around the plug. So you get some cheap extension cord on the end just so you could reach the stain. No longer the case.
Black lights now come in a portable flash light form and bright as heck. Bright enough that you don’t have to turn out the lights in the room to see the stain in most case but turning out the lights only improves the view. We can just turn on the black light “flashlight” in a well lit room and see the stains no problem. All black light flashlights are not like that of course. The bright ones will do that but don’t expect every portable black light to be able to spot a stain with the lights on. However; you should expect every portable black light to function properly in the dark. If it doesn’t get something brighter.
The light we have is one hundred LEDs. There are several brands available. The price for the flashlight goes up with more LED lights as you would expect. The one we have is bright enough to see stains without turning out the lights. We can see mucus stains when a cat shakes their head. They’re that good now. Black lights come in all sizes and brightness. Get them on a key chain… one, three, four LEDs, on up to a hundred. There’s many selections. The point here is that they do work… and the brighter the better in our experience.
Having a portable black light around can come in handy. There are a number of uses for a black light beyond seeing your pets hidden stains. For starters, you can see hidden rodent trails from rats and mice. As an example… you store your soda cans in the garage. You go to the local wholesale club to pick up a few cases. Take your portable black light and shine it on the top of the cans to look for stains left by rodents that have been running across the cans while stored at the wholesalers warehouse. If you have cats.. you shouldn’t have mice… so it has to be the warehouse.
One final use we’ll mention here is the use of black lights to fluoresce scorpions. We have family in Arizona. They use a portable black light (100 LED flash light version). Just point it in the garage or laundry room to give a quick look for scorpions. Scorpions in some states are just as numerous as spiders in the household, so having a portable black light to do quick checks is the norm for our family. They light up the scorpions extremely well and make them stick out in the dark easily. Wikipedia has a good article on black lights if you’re interested… with a scorpion pic or two.
Black lights can be bought online at various prices. As a frame of reference, the 100 LED version highlighted in this article pictured above cost us under $20. Given the uses in the typical pet household, well worth every penny.