Helping pet owners maintain a clean couch
Sweeper Sundays, rainy days and other home improvement tips for pets
As soon as Junee (my Hound mix) sees me open the dining room closet door, she knows what’s about to happen: Sweeper Sundays. For well over a decade and every Sunday morning, I wake up and clean my home from top to bottom — dusting; sweeping; mopping; wiping ceiling fan blades; vacuuming; polishing wood; cleaning mirrors and windows; scrubbing couch stains; checking plug-ins, candles and incense inventory; and using Febreze for my couches. In her puppy year, she took this as a personal challenge to roll over each couch after I vacuumed them, chase the broom like a remote control car and try to lick the windows.
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A few visits to her crate, and she figured out that wasn’t the move. She also learned to like Sweeper Sundays, primarily because she knew somewhere in that mix would be brushing her fur. I don’t know any dog who enjoys getting her smooth-haired fur brushed more than my own; she falls onto her side and turns up the corners of her mouth in bliss. A treat comes shortly after. As she grows, she now skips all the running around, sits patiently on my kitchen floor to be brushed and trots to the crate for about 45 minutes while I work. She’ll occasionally peer out of her crate if I walk into another room, but for the most part, 43 of those 45 minutes are a quick nap.
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It sounds easy now. But I am also the owner of a beige couch and a matching ottoman, a former dog boarder and a current dog walker — 89 dogs, 508 walks. Every dog’s fur count and shedding is different, and light-colored couches are a constant battle for pet owners. It took me some time and a lot of scrubbing before I figured out how to keep my couches clean, scratch-free with pillows intact. Here’s what I did.