Best Practises for Cleaning up after Pets

**monkeywrangler71** · 06-11-2010, 08:05 PM

I don't have any, but I know it was a common theme in the thread about challenges in caring for your home.

What are your best tips for minimizing pet odours, cleaning up after the occasional pet "mess", and keeping pet hair under control?

**gapeach** · 06-11-2010, 08:42 PM

I sprinkle baking sode on the carpets and vacuum once a week. I also vacuum the furniture that our little dog gets on. That along with dusting and sweeping is part of my weekly routine. We also wash our dogs several times a year. As far as any accidents that may occur, it depends on what they have an accident on. We're really lucky as our dogs rarely have them. If it happens on the carpet, I get it up with a light color towel and thn sprinkle baking soda on it. Then I use my hand held shampooer and clean it. I haven't had a stain yet. Now, if they vomit (once again it rarely happens) that's another story. I yell for dear husband and he takes care of that!

**RABBIT** · 06-11-2010, 09:14 PM

I have 4 dogs and 2 cats so I vacuum every day. Furniture gets vacuumed 3 times a week. My oldest dog has seperation anxiety so occasionally has an accident in the house and that is blotted up with a towel and then I use Nature's Miracle on it. For the occasional cat vomit, I use alittle of the carpet cleaner solution in a bucket to scrub carpet. I used to have one of those hand held carpet cleaners and loved it. Thanks for reminding me of it gapeach, I'll have to put that on my wish list. I also have no stains on my carpets.

Dogs are bathed every 3 months or as needed. Dog beds are washed every other week. Dogs are brushed doing peak shedding seasons.

If you have furniture that pet hair sticks to, put on some rubber gloves, wet them and use them to brush the hair off of your furniture. Works great.

**bumplett** · 06-11-2010, 09:38 PM

shave them all down and make them wear socks & diapers

/joke

**pita1213** · 06-14-2010, 04:59 PM

Vacuum and sweep. The sweeping is done daily and the vacuuming weekly. If we had allergies to pet dander, the vacuuming would be more frequent.
We have one beagle. He's not allowed on the furniture because he hurt his hip when he was a puppy and jumping up and down from the furniture could re-injure it. Downstairs only 2 rooms have carpet so sweeping daily keeps that under control. If he has an accident, it's usually on the tile floor so stains aren't an issue. I have a carpet shampooer that I can get out if there is an accident on the carpet that stains, but generally I have found that if you clean them up right away, there isn't a stain.
He doesn't get treats that have a lot of dyes in them because the red dye upsets his stomach. As long as we avoid that, we don't have the puke stains to worry about.
He has a bell hanging on the door to ring when he wants to go out and is pretty good about that. The only time he will go in the house is if he's home alone with ds and ds ignores the bell ringing.

**krbshappy71** · 06-14-2010, 10:54 PM

My best tips:

Dog door!! Greatly reduces accidents when they have upset tummies. Mine were taught the command "OUT" whenever they started that heaving-upchucking noise. Its saved us many clean ups, they head for the dog door when they start to feel that way. There's always the unexpected sickness but the dogs do make an effort to head outside if they can. Praise and praise when they do so. Teach them "out" at first, just as a command to leave the house through the dog door, then start using it whenever you hear that sickly noise.

Crate training! Don't let them destroy the house, teach them to be comfortable in their den while you are gone. As they get older and learn their manners through supervision, great, don't crate, but while they are little its just going to be more messes to clean up if they have free reign. Also, when mine were injured, it was great that they had their crate to recuperate in, they already had accepted the crate as their home. Crates can be very useful when used properly.

Brush dogs outside. Having four dogs, let me tell ya', the birds get more than enough nesting material. Brush, brush, brush. Start brushing them and teaching them to tolerate it at a young age. (or use food/praise if they are already older) Mine know the commands, "sit" "stand" "wait" which greatly helps while brushing. They line up, its really cute. Its great owner/bonding time too.

Baking soda for the carpet freshening, open windows before company comes over to air things out.