Cleaning Tips for Pet Owners

Cats, dogs, and all other furry creatures become well-loved household pets, as much a part of our family as children. On the down-side, these same beloved pets often create household cleaning headaches. Between muddy paws, fur on furniture and clothing, odors and the occasional accident, we can spend a lot of time cleaning up after our furry friends.

Since pets will never be able to clean up after themselves, we have to get creative and undo the most common pet damages on our own. Offered here are several cleaning tips for minimizing the headaches that Fido and Fifi can cause.

Minimize the Mess

Cleaner pets mean a cleaner house. Regularly bathing and brushing your pets will reduce the amount of fur, dander, and odors they bring into and leave lingering in the home. Purchase a cheap lint brush (the kind with tacky tape wrapped around it) and keep it handy to pick up loose pet hair quickly and easily.

Another handy pet-mess-prevention tip is to spray a light mist of vegetable cooking oil on the inside of your pet dishes before you feed them. This makes both food and water dishes easier to clean out, and the oil will add shine to your furry friend's coat.

Pet Hair Removal

Carpeting is probably the easiest household item to remove pet hair from, since we tend to vacuum regularly. Just make sure that your vacuum has a beater brush or brush roll to really lift the carpet fibers and pull pet hair out of the floor.

On fabrics and upholstery, a brush with crimped nylon bristles (pet rake) will speed up the removal of pet hair tenfold. Use light, even strokes in one direction to remove the hair. Velour brushes, tape rollers, and even packing tape wrapped around your hand will work well too.

Most pet supply stores and department stores sell "pet sponges" which can be used on both upholstery and carpeting. The sponges work best in corners and hard-to-reach areas where pet hair seems to collect most.

If all else fails, very lightly dampen a regular cleaning sponge, wring it out well, and use light strokes, pulling toward you, to collect pet hair. Just make sure that the fabric you're applying water to won't be damaged by the dampness.

Pet Stain Removal

Pet stains can be the most frustrating of all our cleaning chores. These often carry the double-irritation of odor, and should be cleaned to treat both the stain and the pet odor.

To remove a pet urine stain, dampen a cleaning cloth with warm water. Then, dilute the stain by "blotting" the area. Start at the outside of the stain and work your way to the middle. Once evenly dampened, clean the area with an acid solution made from one quart water mixed with 3 tablespoons white vinegar.

If it is a particularly bad stain, or if the pet has returned to that spot more than once, follow the acid solution with baking soda. Really scrub the soda into the spot, using a nylon bristled brush. Even if our noses can no longer detect any odor, a pet will repeatedly return to the same spot if it can smell its own scent.

Older stains, and ones that have been repeatedly returned to, require something more. You will need to purchase an enzyme cleaner (just check the pet store or the pet section of your department store) and follow this process:

1. Apply the bacteria enzyme cleaner according to the directions on the packaging. Allow it to work for about four hours.
2. Neutralize the spot (do not remove the enzyme cleaner first) by mixing a solution of one cup vinegar to a gallon of warm water, and rinse the area thoroughly with the vinegar solution. Scrub roughly with a nylon brush.
3. Apply a fresh batch of the bacteria enzyme cleaner solution. Rinse and clean completely with warm water after about one hour.

Litter Boxes

Cleaning out the litter box is an unpleasant chore at best, but there are several things that you can do to make it a bit easier. First, when you are ready to prepare fresh litter, lightly coat the inside of the box with a thin spray of vegetable oil, and lightly dust the oil with a thin coating of baking soda. This will keep things from "sticking", and also absorbs a great deal of odor. Purchasing litter box liners also make clean-up much easier, since you can just grab the plastic liner and toss the contents into the waste bin.

It is important to really wash the litter box, even if you use liners. A large number of bacteria can grow in the litter box. Do not use ammonia or bleach. Bleach mixed with the ammonia that naturally occurs in pet urine will cause an unpleasant smell that will make your pet restless and drive them to have accidents elsewhere in the home. Just clean it with soap water, or water that is mixed with an all-purpose cleaner (the kind made with natural orange oils is perfect, and anti-bacterial).