Shop · Little Victorian

Our favorite dog items…

to keep the dog smell (and look) away and keep them comfortable.

Our routine includes:

Daily:

Run the robot vacuum (automatically–and bonus: it’s on a schedule, so it forces you to tidy the floor before it runs).

When needed:

Spritzing Kids-N-Pets on problem areas or areas the pets frequent takes care of small odor issues.
A couple times a week, we brush the dogs (outside) to keep loose fur out.
Doggy feet get stinky and transfer that stink to the floors, so when needed use the MudBuster paw cleaner–usually once or twice a week. Then dry with a towel. You’ll have less stink on the soft floors and less paw prints on the hard floors. If you don’t have a MudBuster, use a wet towel, then a dry towel.

Weekly:

Use a deshedding brush on them.
If you have a double-coated dog, you’ll be amazed that you could pretty much create a second dog out of the fur you get out of them every week…fur that would be all over your house otherwise.
Run down the soft furniture with a rubber glove, misted or dampened with water (not WET, just damp).
It picks up all the fur way better than a lint roller does, and there’s no waste and no refills to buy.
Run a full-sized vacuum on carpeted areas. Twice in a row. You’ll be amazed at what comes up with a second cleaning, whether you have dogs or not, but especially if you do.
After running the vacuum (twice!), clean the carpet with a carpet cleaner, preferably using Kids-N-Pets as your cleaning solution (it’s natural and actually eliminates the odor instead of masking it with fake ones and it’s the most effective natural ones we’ve found).
Mop hard floors. (Don’t use Kids-N-Pets in your mopping liquid, it makes them VERY slippery.)

Bi-monthly/monthly:

Bathe the dogs.
There’s much advice about how often to bathe your dog. After having 4 of our own, and having over 100 visiting dogs, we’ve found that every dog has different needs. Some need a bath monthly, some weekly. When your dog no longer smells neutral and feels pleasant, they’re are likely feeling it too and start scratching and rolling in the grass excessively. Give ’em a bath. For double coated dogs, the silicon dog brush helps tremendously to get all the way to the skin when bathing. (If you can’t seem to get the shampoo all the way to the skin, that means they might have slightly matted fur, use a slicker brush to clean that up, then bathe.) I do 2 to 4 shampoos per bath, depending on how clean the fur feels. Start with 2 if you’re not sure.
Dry thoroughly after the bath, otherwise they’ll just bring in fresh wet dog smell and undo everything. Towel dry (2 to 3 towels with lots of encouraged “Shake” in between, then let them run around outside while you clean up–tossing some kibble into the grass keeps them excited by engaging their hunting needs and keeps them busy while they dry out a little–we say “Kibble hunt!”). Then blow dry to make sure they’re dry to the skin.
Wash their bedding