Man’s best friend, floorings worst foe
Top Tips to house train pets and keep your home fresh
Pets can make a huge difference in your life, often improving your health, lifestyle and mood. They just make us happy. They brighten up our day and they’re always there to support us, through thick and thin. However, they can make it a real challenge to keep your home clean, healthy and smelling fresh.
Having a dog or cat means your flooring sees increased traffic and possibly some stains over time. Not only is it difficult to deal with a pet urine accident once one has occurred, but it’s also tough to know where past accidents may have taken place, accidents you may not have even known about. Pet urine in the carpet not only leaves an unsightly stain and an unpleasant odour, but it penetrates the fibres and contaminates both the carpet and the floor underneath.
You can take steps to prevent stains, like house training your animals from the time they arrive home. Here are some housetraining tips to help with integrating your new pet into your household:
1. Schedule your dog’s feedings
Get your dog on scheduled feedings rather than free feeding. Eating all day = pooping all day. Your vet can help you determine the appropriate amount of food your dog needs and the number of feedings per day. Remove any uneaten food after 20 minutes and do not offer the dog more food until the next scheduled meal.
2. Understand normal dog behavior
When an accident happens, NEVER rub a dog’s nose in urine or faeces, or punish a dog for an ‘accident’. This will teach your dog to fear you, and he may hide when he has to ‘go’. It is not instinctive for dogs to relieve themselves outside. It is only natural for them to not go where they sleep. You must be patient. Regardless of whether you have recently adopted a puppy or an adult, the dog will not automatically understand the routine in your house or know where the door is. It is up to you to train your dog.
3. Avoid repeat behaviours
Even if you do everything right when you bring a new dog into your household, an occasional accident may still happen. If your new pet does have an accident, it’s important to remember that dogs are attracted to return to spots where they urinated/defecated previously. If you clean up just a little, the dog will be attracted to “refresh” the spot. If you clean thoroughly, there will be no attraction to go there again.
4. Clean up messes thoroughly.
Pet urine is very difficult to get out, and standard household cleaners don’t work because it penetrates the fibres and contaminates both the carpet and the floor underneath. Using a special U.V light, Chem-Dry can detect pet accidents in your home and eliminate pet urine odours from your carpets and rugs by applying their revolutionary cleaning product P.U.R.T.® (Pet Urine Removal Treatment). P.U.R.T. contacts the source of the odour and immediately begins a chemical reaction that destroys the pet urine odour.
5. Prevent future accidents
Once you have handled getting any accidents cleaned professionally, how do you prevent future ones? It comes down to figuring out the why, really. There are a few reasons your pet could be having accidents. Maybe they can smell past accidents, which makes it comfortable to continue having accidents. Maybe they don’t have a personal space or maybe they are are left alone for too long or get nervous. With older dogs, sometimes their bladders are not functioning as well as they used to.
You should do the best you can to keep an eye on your dogs and take them out for toilet breaks regularly to avoid accidents. You can even install a doggy door and train them how to use it. Get your backyard fenced in so they can come in and out as they please. And of course, the more you train them to know where to go and where not to go, the less likely accidents will happen.
Founded in 1977, Chem-Dry is the world’s leading carpet and upholstery cleaning service with a network of more than 3500 units in 47 countries serving over 100,000 homes a day worldwide. Its green certified solution and proprietary hot carbonating extraction cleaning process provide a deeper clean, allow surfaces to dry faster and leave homes healthier. Chem-Dry has been ranked as the number one carpet cleaning franchise by Entrepreneur Magazine for 27 consecutive years and has been operating successfully in Ireland since 1989 serving both residential and commercial properties. For more information or to find a local operator seewww.chemdry.ie
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