Deer, oh dear, I have a deer problem. For years, we existed in harmony with deer that live in the woods near our house. Then they discovered the front flowerbed we added and the buffet opened for business.

This year word went out to a larger deer clientele and friends came with friends to munch on potato vines, beach sunflowers and impatiens. Each morning a survey shows more plants nibbled to the ground.

I decided to act; but how and what gets rid of deer? Several folks suggested wolf urine (I heard that it keeps wayward dogs out, too). Therefore, I set out in search of a bottle.

I looked at Wal-Mart, but, with the exception of raccoon urine, all of their scents were deer related. Since my goal is not to attract deer, I continued the search.

I mentioned finding raccoon urine, but no wolf to my husband who asked me an interesting question.

“How do they get the raccoon urine?”

Oh, you should not ask me such a question because my mind goes spinning off on a twisting road.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “How do they get animal urine?”

To which he replied.

“Do they put the raccoons in a room and give them little cups and tell them to fill them?” he said.

I laughed. “Is there a place with a whole bunch of different animals being plied with water so they pee like crazy?”

Then I took another twisting path.

“And who collects the urine?” I said. “I can hear it now.

“What do you do for a living? ‘Oh, I collect wolf pee down at the urine factory. Great job.’”

Now you are probably thinking what I thought — it isn’t real urine but chemicals designed to imitate the particular fragrance of animal elimination. Nope, turns out it’s the real stuff. In fact, there is a whole animal urine/scent industry with products ranging from coyote to wolf to deer to mountain lion specimens.

Oh, and one of my personal favorites.

“SkunkUm — For Loitering People and Dogs! The all natural way to stop unwanted loitering.” This could do away with the need for curfews to keep those pesky teenagers from loitering on the square.
In addition, there are things to know about the quality of urine and the best way to preserve and store it. For example, beware of urines that are low-odor or “flat.” Nothing worse than flat urine.

Did you know, “If your urine lure or scent has developed an undesirable amount of ammonia odor, you should take the lid off and “bleed off” the ammonia for a few hours.”

“Hi honey. What ya’ doin‘? Oh, I’m just bleedin’ off my mountain lion pee. Be done in a couple of hours.”

Alternatively, how about, “The best place to store your urine lures is in your refrigerator in a zip lock bag.” Ok, I draw the line at a baggy full of any kind of urine kept in my refrigerator.

Anyway, this research has me looking at my deer visitation in a different light —here we go down that twisting road of thinking I mentioned earlier. There is a big market for deer scents, including deer urine.

So I should embrace the deer, invite in a few raccoons, see them for their potential on the animal scent market.

Now if I can figure out how to get them to pee in a cup and whether Miller Lite, Budweiser or sparkling water works best for optimal urine production.