Love Your Pet but Hate Cleaning Pet Hair?

Firstly I'd like to take this opportunity to say I love my pets! They are not just animals we keep in the backyard, but are family members. In our home we have 2 large dogs (Great Danes at 70kg each) and 2 cats (regular house cats that were adopted due to being abandoned as kittens). Most of the time they are inside animals, except for when we are not home. This means shedding hair on the floor, leaving paw prints on the carpet, jumping on the bed (only when we let them!) and occasionally being lap dogs. Imagine a dopey 70kg Great Dane parking himself on your lap!

As you could guess, we spend a fair bit of time cleaning up after these gentle giants and our little furry feline friends. Over the years we have worked out some routines which help us stay on top of any mess, and want to share these with you!

1. Purchase a robot vacuum - The iRobot Roomba has been a blessing to our household! The dogs and cats shed a fair amount of hair daily, so we simply turn on the Roomba before we leave for work. Each evening we come home to a clean floors. Brilliant!

2. Leave windows open a notch - Our lovable friends get bathed weekly, however still tend to leave a distinct doggy 'scent' in the house. Leave a window open a notch in the rooms where they stay mostly to help air out the house.

3. Remove hair from wooden furniture - To remove pet hair from wooden furniture, use a soft cotton cloth sprayed with furniture polish or anti-static dusting spray. The spray will eliminate the electric charge, making removal easier and lessening the likelihood that the hair will re-stick.

4. Remove hair from upholstered surfaces and clothes - You can remove pet hair from upholstered surfaces or bed linens very easily. Put on a pair of rubber gloves and wet them a slightly. Then run your hand over the surface allowing the hair to stick to the glove. Rinse the glove and repeat. Alternative, you can use a sticky lint roller. These can be purchased fairly cheaply from most supermarkets or hardware stores.

5. Train your pets - This is one of the most effective methods to keeping the house clean with pets. While it does take time and effort, training your pet to understand that there are boundaries is very effective. You can train them that certain rooms in the house are specifically out of bounds, to stay off furnitre and even to notify you when they need to go to the toilet!. Everybody has different methods for dog training, however here is a starting point. 

Feel free to let us know if you have any other tips that have worked for you. In the mean time, check out this video of dog training gone slightly wrong. Enjoy!