We sanded, stained and put 3 coats of water based sealer on our hardwood floors throughout our living room hallway and three bedrooms of our bungalow last summer (2011).

Our dog had an accident that was cleaned up within a half hour but it had already left a black stain in the tuscan coloured hardwood. We previously had our floors sanded years ago and had it finished with oil based polyurethane and when the dog had an accident it did not stain so quickly.

We are sanding down the hallway this weekend due to these pet stains and also because it was not stained properly in the first place my delimea is: Does the pet stain happen so quickly because it was a waterbased finish rather than an oil based finish. (It happened six months after the floors were sanded and stained) We live in Canada and we cannot buy oil based stain at Home Depot or other big box stores. I have read on that the quality at the big box stores for the water based finish is poor (that is where we bought this one) and that we should go to Sherman Williams and get theirs because it has more "solids" in it? Comments, suggestiion, HELP would be greatly appreciated.

Since your floor was in the process of curing the urine ate through the top cured layer of poly. Urine is very strong and I am sure it would have eaten through a recently finished oil floor as well.

Most water based finishes are at least as tough or tougher in 2 component finishes. You can't buy 2 componenet finishes. These are for trained contractors. You can still buy quarts of oil based products. Check a smaller box store. You can also get low voc oil at Home Depot. I live in Canada as well.

Bona Traffic

Waterborne finishes are more open to chemicals than oil/solvent based finishes. So, urine stains will develop quicker as the ammonia penetrates faster thru the molucular pores of waterborne finish.

Johannes.