5 supplies to avoid your house smelling like dogs
Warning: Your dog won’t like the couch rule
Every time I walk through the lobby and into his home, I know it’s going to smell like a candle shop. This dog owner has a Mini Pinscher who takes great joy in racing the electronic vacuum to the door. I’m never clear on who won the race because, as I open the door, the vacuum moves while the Min Pin jumps on my knees. What I do know for sure is the dog owner’s home smells amazing. I still haven’t figured out how he manages to do it, considering he’s a business traveler and has allowed Airbnb guests to stay in his home. Somehow though, it’s always noticeably neat in there.
The same thing happens when I used to regularly walk a Cockapoo, but the mystery was solved with that family. I’d often see the housekeepers parked in front of the house when I stopped at the driveway. And my favorite girl on Earth — a Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dog — lives in a home with candles sprinkled throughout. In all three homes, the dogs are flopping around on the couch. But they’ve managed to keep it clean.
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It’s not like this in every home I house/dogsit. There’s no mistaking the scent of a dog when a home has not properly been cleaned. And to be quite honest, my basement smelled like dog a lot of the time, primarily because my family let my Lab/German Shepherd mix and German Shepherd have full run of the place from front to back. We’d go on sweeping and mopping rampages to clean it, but then my paper-trained dog would cancel out what had been done. (We learned the hard way that yard-training made our basement smell much better.) So I’m not turning up my nose to anyone’s home.
But in order to make sure your home is presentable to the few guests you have during social isolation, and yourself since you’re at home way more than usual, here are the supplies you most definitely need before bringing home a dog.
Duo vacuum: No matter how great your vacuum is for picking up food crumbs and a spilled plant, you really need to look for a hand-held vacuum and a floor vacuum that specializes in getting up pet hair. Don’t just pay attention to what the manufacturer says; read the reviews from pet owners and look for the breed of the dog. Picking up poodle hair simply won’t be the same as picking up Labrador Retriever hair.
In addition to finding a vacuum with triple-level filtration or reasonable dirt capacity levels, pay attention to how loud it is. Dogs can hear sounds as high as 47,000 to 65,000 Hz so the last thing you want to do is get a really loud vacuum that your dog is not ready for. Preferably from puppy years, run your vacuum regularly so your dog gets used to the sound. Otherwise you’ll have a fight on your hands (or terrify your dog) every time you try to vacuum the room.
Recommended Read: “Helping pet owners maintain a clean couch ~ Sweeper Sundays, rainy days and other home improvement tips for pets”
Pet fur-friendly couches: You’re going to have a tough time with that polyester/taupe couch. Your dollar-value pet rollers simply won’t get your furry dog’s mess up. Sometimes the vacuum won’t either, and using tape and other do-it-yourself tricks may mess up the couch fabric. If you’ve long ago lost interest in training your dog to stay off the couch, the best thing you can do is consider couches that are easier to take care of.
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