9 Easy tips for keeping your house clean with dogs
How to keep your house clean with dogs
Yes, you can have a clean home and a dog (or multiple dogs). As a dog trainer we have dogs coming and going, we also have two dogs and I frequently (okay daily) come home in smelly horse riding pants and dusty boots. Yet people come over and comment on how even with dogs our house doesn’t smell at all, actually, you wouldn’t know we have dogs till you looked around at all the dog beds and toys.
So how we do keep our house clean with dogs? Here are our top tips.
- Couch covers – Our dogs are family and hence they hang out on the couch with us. We use Mambe furniture covers in our home as you can barely see them as they fit in perfectly with our furniture, they are waterproof and super easy to clean. We get the ones that just cover the bottom sections as our dogs aren’t huge shedders.
- Pet friendly blankets – For the areas of furniture the dogs lay we use pet friendly throws that are waterproof and easy to clean, this is helpful if they are chewing their nasty bones on the furniture. I love the blanket from paw.com and this one from pet play, use code Maggierossi for 15% off.
- Prevent your dog from dripping water at the water bowl – some dogs tend to make a huge mess while drinking, whether that’s their drinking stle of the beard under their chin. When we have these dogs over our house I get out our our no slobber bowls. They doesn’t get rid of the water mess 100% but they do drastically cut it back, to note it is very important you get the right size so read the sizing. This is the one we use, with all of these be sure to clean them really well when refilling. There is also the slobber stopper (get the right size for your dog) and this one too!
- Clean your floors well – This has been the biggest and most recent game changer for us. My boyfriend probably would have kicked me out by now if it weren’t for this mop vacuum from Tineco (note, they also have the cheaper option but the battery is slightly less powerful and doesn’t show you the dirt spots which I love). The floors quickly get gross from the dogs just playing and being dogs, from paw prints and water spilled. And dare I say for the first time in my life I like cleaning the floors and this vacuum that mops and dries leaves them smelling and looking great. Clean floors make a massive difference in a house of dogs.
- Vacuum – if you don’t have hard wood or tile or lots of rugs having a good vacuum is so important! We use this Dyson and it’s held up for 5+ years like a champ. I’m sure there are other great options too but this is what we use.
- Ruggables – Ruggables offer a rug I can throw in the wash after clients leave or simply on the regular is so nice. I’ll never go back.
- Clean dogs – We keep our dogs smelling clean, cause a stinky dog is just gonna stink up the beds, couches, blankets etc. I use Skouts Honor’s shampoos, code Ellis20 takes 20% off, (Amazon link here) as it has probiotics to help not strip the microbiome from their skin. In between baths I’ll use a deodorizer spray that is super easy, quick and smells good. It’s also important to note that if we go hiking or on a muddy adventure the dogs are washed immediately when we get home, they don’t run around the house stinky. Psst code Maggierossi takes 20% off on the first link.
- Clean pet urine and gross spots (like puke) properly – Rossi loves to puke in his dog bed and it smells awful, speaking from experience. Cleaning your home items properly is really essential to avoiding that dog smell, this includes areas where a dog may have peed or thrown up. Most cleaners you need to let sit for 5-10 mins before wiping up to really clean and get rid of odor so read those bottles properly. I use different products for each this scenarios I use Urine Destroyer (Amazon link here) for dog pee with all those puppy clients and severe mess stain & odor spray for puke and other gross dog moments, code Ellis20 takes 20% off those items.
- Air purifiers – To suck up any pet smells that might be remaining (plus dust, pollen and other allergens). It’s so quiet and easy, something we love and don’t need to think about much besides changing the filter, I recommend looking at this Levoit one and this Levoit pet one in your home.
We hope these tips help keep your home smelling and looking nice with minimal effort too!
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