My dog just *bleeping* PEED on my MacBook!

[maz-o]

Yep, you read it right.

My sweet 3 year old dog who's been the most obedient, house trained, and friendly companion since a tiny puppy, just went completely amok yesterday.

I left my fiancée's white unibody MacBook on the bed together with my iPhone 5, while I brushed my teeth downstairs. The dog is allowed on the bed because she behaves. I also don't worry about my stuff around her because she doesn't touch it. But this time the little whorehound went and spilled a huge load all over the keyboard of the MB, and on my iPhone that were on the bed while I was away. WTF I can't even picture the scenario in my head with her squatting all on top of my stuff.

I can literally leave a steak on the sofa and she won't touch it, because she knows she's not allowed to. Same goes with "going" inside the house. She hasn't done that since she was like 3 months old.

The MB was still running when I came back, couldn't have been more than 5 minutes since the "incident". I immediately turned it off, whiped it clean with some sanitizing cloths, and dried it as well as I could with toilet paper. Turned it off and turned it upside down while open, to dry.

Is there something else I can do to ensure the computer won't be destroyed? The iphone was fine, just wiped it dry and cleaned it. I'm more worried about the Mac since it was all over the keyboard (literally dripping out when I turned it upside down, a wee bit disgusting). How long until I can try turning the computer on again?

Disclaimer: As a responsible pet owner I realize this is on me, and not the dog. She did not get punished, I just ignored her for the rest of the evening while cleaning and whatnot. I also must keep an eye on her behaviour, and hope there's nothing wrong with her. Still confused as heck about the whole thing.

 

[endlightend]

Everything you can do from that point is conjecture. Putting it in rice, having a fan dry it, there isn't a guarantee that the logic board isn't permanently damaged. Do you have a backup of all your data? Just from what other contributors have said, I've heard the best thing to do is to leave your Macbook off for as long as possible, up to five days when you're 100% all the internal components are dry before turning back on. If there is sensitive data that you really need that hasn't been backed up, I would take the hard drive to a professional immediately to recover it, or plug it into another computer if you don't believe it's been damaged in order to transfer the data.

 

[vistadude]

There's no guarantee it will work, but it's better to take the hard drive and battery out asap and clean those too with a damp cloth/paper towel. There might be some sticky pee on other internal components, try to clean them if possible.

 

[WildCard^]

I recently opened up my old MB 2008 and the KB unit appeared pretty solid. Is there any info on whether it was engineered to resist liquid seeping through to the underneath?

I ask, because PC laptops seem to often have a waterproof 'pool' surrounding the keys, so that unless you pour a lot of liquid on the KB, it won't go over the threshhold onto the electronics.

With those devices, it's actually recommended you not tip it over to drain, and to instead let it evaporate. I dont' remember which models, but I think they were Dell devices. I have on atleast two occasions removed Dell laptop KBs to run under warm sink water to remove sugary soda. An odd fix that I didn't know would work until I saw another co-worker do it.

As an aside, I googled 'dog pee laptop' and it's amazing how many stories there are of dogs peeing on their owners KB, phone, or laptop. I wonder if they do it because of the smell (we are constantly touching the machine, getting food, whatever on it) or they do it as a jealous dominant thing, as they are jealous of the time we spend with it vs them.

 

[trevm999]

Please do not put in rice or anything like that, it can get inside the machine and inside any ports. Do not turn it on. Take it to an AASP. Most likely it will need a new top case, but it is possible the liquid did not make it to the logic board, or maybe the liquid damage is minor and can be cleaned up.

 

[MacVidCards]

Back when they were still expensive, I had a dog pee on a portable CD player.

It had power on when this happened and I didn't discover until later.

Basically this is like seawater. The high salt content makes it uniquely PERFECT for destroying electronics. I took out the PCBs and they had green and white crust on many little components. The electrons ran over top of board, bringing reactants to various pieces.

The CD player never worked again.

Don't run any power to Macbook until you take apart and clean. Even if it works for awhile, it may very well be migrating conductive components around on PCB.

Good luck.

 

[blueroom]

Dog's telling you it's a good time to upgrade your old MacBook.