We’ve recently added another dog to the family! Possibly a slightly crazy move considering we’ll also be adding our third child to the family in November, but by the looks of it, we also wanted to have the same amount of dogs too. This will mean that we’ll have a little more cleaning to do thanks to the new addition, but we’re not alone! I’m here to talk about our loveable pets, how much extra they add to our cleaning and perhaps some ways to help reduce it! Anyway… Here’s Rex, our 8 week old cockapoo. He’s the fluffy one.
I will just say before I start, that I’m a dog person. And I’m not alone. In fact, the majority of pet owners in the UK are dog owners. Not by much mind, but 63% of pet owners in the UK own dogs, versus 57% who own cats. And let’s be honest, that figure shouldn’t even be that close. Like who really owns a cat? They basically just wander off and you might see them a few days later. Meanwhile a dog is with you pretty much all the time. Especially if you have dachshunds who are definitely lap dogs.
But that figure really isn’t surprising to me. What is surprising is the amount of additional cleaning hours having a per adds to your weekly life. Let’s take a look, shall we?
How much extra cleaning does having a pet add?
Don’t get me wrong, when most people consider getting a pet and all the love and affection that pet will bring, they probably don’t sit there going “yeah, but how many hours extra of cleaning do you think we’ll end up doing?” Which is fair enough.
BUT…
Did you know that it takes a pet owner 4 TIMES AS LONG to keep their household clean than someone without pets?
I don’t even want to see the data on the cleaning hours for people who also have kids on top of pets. It ain’t 4 hours a week I can tell you that. I’ve had to stop twice while writing this blog due to the fact we’re currently toilet training Archie, our 19 month old.
But either way, that’s an incredible amount of additional cleaning purely for just adding pets. Since we all lead incredibly busy lives, no one wants to have unnecessary cleaning to do. So I guess you want me to give you some tips on how to reduce your cleaning when you have pets? Sure, why not.
How to reduce your cleaning time when you have pets
Get your dog groomed regularly
According to a survey carried out by Beko 41% of people stated that “Shedding pet hair on furnishings and carpets” was the messy trait that their pet had. With that fact in mind, one thing you can do to try and limit and amount of hair being being shed on furnishings and carpets is to simply have your pet groomed more often. You can either do this yourself with regular washes and brushes, or if you really don’t want the added hassle of grooming your pet, you can simply book a groom once a month.
Having your pet groomed will simply mean that someone else is sorting most of the shedded fur out for you. Which means there’s less to shed all over your house. But, you’ll still get some shedded fur from time to time, so the next step would be to sort out the fur that the groom doesn’t sort.
Vacuum on a daily basis with a good quality vacuum cleaner
I know, sorry for suggesting this one to you. No one really likes to vacuum every single day, but it really does help to reduce the amount of build up in shedded pet fur. It might sound like hassle doing it daily, but if you have a quality cordless vacuum cleaner – like the PowerClean from Beko – then it can be a pretty hassle free experience. Although if you’re anything like me you’ll quickly lose all the attachments and then moan when you struggle cleaning the stairs.
Get yourself some good stain remover
Second on the list of messy traits for pets was “getting mud everywhere“. So it goes without saying that if you want to reduce the time you spend cleaning, simply buy a good stain remover. We’ve used Rugdoctor products in the past and have been happy with those.
But either way, as we move into the wetter months – whatever that means in the UK – you’ll find yourself being more and more exposed to those muddy footprints throughout the house. Grabbing a quality stain remover just makes life that little bit easier.
Let’s see how 3 dogs and 3 kids impacts our cleaning!
Well that’s it from me. Hopefully you found something here that might help, but either way, you’re still going to have to clean. So sorry about that one. But wish us luck. We’ll see how much cleaning an extra kids adds to our weekly cleaning. Although let’s be honest, once you hit two it’s all chaos from there anyway.
Thank you for reading!
