Urine Nation

I have problems...

The family took a lovely road trip down to Tucson a couple of weeks ago. The house was going to be empty for 5 days or so, so we:

• boarded the dog
• up-ended a bag of cat food into a big bowl & scooped their litter boxes for the cats.
  

Since returning, 1-year-old Kodos has peed in the house four times, in 3 spots. And it seems not to be the regular, only-mildly-offensive pee. This is especially pungent stuff. I can smell it in the room, even after cleaning it with the Get Serious enzyme cleaner, which is supposed to make the smell imperceptible even to the sensitive noses of animals. I've gone over all 3 spots with that several times, and with an upright carpet steamer, and with a hand steamer. The smell is better (at least once the affected spots dry) but I can still smell it if I put my nose down in the affected area. I am definitely in the market for carpet-cleaning tips--please tell me how I can fix these!

Until I can get these things cleaned, I dare not let K into the carpeted areas of the house, so we're back in baby-gate purgatory for a while. This is particularly a drag, b/c my in-laws are visiting, and they are not the most nimble folks.

Have I mentioned that I need carpet cleaning tips?

So what the heck is going on? Why the sudden backslide of house training at this late date? I had trusted Kodos to roam all over the whole house for many months. He hadn't had an accident since I took away the beef bone that seemed to make him, um, incontinent in a different way.

Here are some facts to bolster the conclusion I'm about to lay on you. ;-)

• At the boarding kennel, Kodos was stationed 2 kennels down from a female in season.
• While we were gone, the cats took to using one of the bedrooms (the one K first peed) as a litter box & the place stank to high heaven. (Thankfully, they peed on bedding, which was easily removed & laundered--not so much with our carpeting.)
• Kodos has recently begun lifting his leg to pee, as opposed to squatting.

So I'm thinking that Kodos has had a more or less sudden sexual awakening, and that that is causing him to 'mark' in the house (e.g., pee not to eliminate urine, but to spread his scent around, as a way to mark his territory). More importantly, I'm hoping that getting him neutered (and we did that this past Wednesday) is going to remove this impulse from him completely.

That's right, isn't it? The vet 'fixed' him, didn't she?