Secrets to Having Pets AND a Pretty Home

If you love interior decorating AND you love dogs, you’ve probably endured some frustration in your efforts to keep your home clean and pretty and enjoy your dog(s) at the same time.

I am often asked how I keep our house looking clean and why I feel comfortable investing in light-colored furniture and rugs. Creating organized, beautiful spaces in my home and having dogs are two constants in my life. I don’t ever remember not having those two things, so maybe that’s why I’m a little bit of an expert!

Small disclaimer: there was definitely a time when one of my darlings jumped in a backyard water feature and then somehow walked through every room in the house before finding me in my office. I didn’t include things like “keep exterior doors closed” as a tips, but you probably don’t need those, right?

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Today I’m sharing eight things we do at our house to accommodate “all things dog” so that we can enjoy our furry babies, Cowboy and Goose, AND our home.

1. Provide for your dog’s emotional and physical needs.

You may not have expected to see this on the list, but your dog has to be happy or he is going to make messes and do some damage. There is no way around that. If you don’t want your dog to hump your pillows (yes, this happened) get into trouble while you’re at work, you’ve got to give him some undivided attention and some exercise every day.

These aren’t “extras” or “only if he’s good” options. These are basic needs of most dogs, and if you meet these, you can save yourself a lot of time and frustration. Shortly after we adopted Baby Bright, we used a dog walker for a few months and found it to be very affordable and incredibly helpful for our whole family!

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2. Teach your dog some basic manners. Just one more potentially unpopular tip, and then I’ll get to what you expected to see here! I am not a dog trainer, but I can teach my dog basic manners, and you can, too! Teach your dog not to jump on people or furniture. It doesn’t matter if your dog already does this, you can put an end to it in a relatively short amount of time. Hop on YouTube and get yourself some quick training tips. I hesitate to give specific advice on this, because I’m not a professional, but these two things are really important to keeping you, your house, and your guests cleaner and happier, and they take very little time and effort to accomplish.

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3. Use blankets, sheets, and towels to protect fabrics and other surfaces. Obviously this tip somewhat depends on the last one, and why that last one is so important!

We keep baskets of washable blankets in our family room and den so that when we WANT to have our dogs up on the furniture with us, we can grab a blanket and INVITE them up. At the end of a long Saturday watching football, I throw those blankets in the washer. This is key—if too much hair collects, it starts going airborne = additional life wasted vacuuming.

Keeping our couches covered in sheets 24/7 so that our dogs can lounge away on them at will is a NO for us. For one thing, that means any human who sits there will also be covered in hair and carry that hair all over the house. It also means that the couch is doomed to smell like a dog, unless it has some magical wrapping around the cushions like an expensive dog bed. But it doesn’t….so you can’t have your dogs treating your sofas as their beds and expect it to stay smelling fresh in that room!

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You can use the same system in your bedroom if your dogs sleep on your bed. Just make sure you have several heavy sheets, because you’ll want to roll those up daily, otherwise, HAIR IN THE AIR.

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We also keep a basket of old towels by our back door where Cowboy and Goose go in and out. Especially on rainy days, or when Goose comes back looking like Hooch, these come in really handy! Sidenote: how was Turner and Hooch 30 years ago??

4. Invest in a handheld, cordless vacuum cleaner. I use Dyson and love both my cordless and regular versions. I’ve had my corded Dyson for over ten years and my cordless for almost three years. Yes, they are expensive, so before I could afford one, I used cheaper options. They didn’t last, so when I was able, I upgraded to Dyson. I typically buy older models because they are $200-300 cheaper! Ours is a V7, but the V8s are now comparably priced. You can find a great price on one here, although ALWAYS shop around on these, because prices change constantly. I purchased ours and one of our family’s superheros directly from Dyson, but they currently don’t have the best price. There are sometimes better prices at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, of all places!

5. Keep lint rollers everywhere! You can pick some up at Target, or buy in bulk. I personally like the Scotch-Brite brand in bulk. You can get them here from Amazon. I keep one roller in every bedroom and sitting room in the house! This helps us keep up with hair that gets on the sides of furniture or linens or inevitably ends up airborne and on the tops of places I know the dogs haven’t even touched–like the top of our white slip-covered sectional.

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6. Wash dog beds frequently, and use Febreeze and Carbona. If your dog isn’t sensitive to it, use Febreeze on her dog bed in between washings (of the dog and the dog bed!). At minimum, I wash dog beds when I wash dogs or when I splurge and send them to the groomer.

If I need to spot clean a dog bed or just clean up the usual “mess” Goose creates after eating a bunch of toddler dinner droppings, I use Carbona carpet cleaner. I have tried everything else, including Nature’s Miracle and specialty upholstery cleaners, and Carbona is my go to for stains on anything! It even works on my sea grass rugs!

They have a new version out now specifically for pet stains, but I haven’t tried it, so I can’t speak to how well it works. Another side note: why do dogs always find rugs for vomiting?? GROSS.

7. Eradicate dog slobber. Besides air biscuits and Frito feet, what really stinks up a place is dog saliva! To control odors in your house (and car!), you’ve got to clean up any dog saliva. For our house, this includes the windows at the front and back doors and the spaces where Cowboy and Goose eat. I do this and wash their food and water bowls regularly.

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8. Last but not least, set reasonable expectations. Just like you and your kid/spouse/roommate makes a mess, so do dogs. The love and loyalty of our dogs far outweigh the two extra loads of laundry I do every week to wash their “doggy linens”….or the $10 I spend on carpet cleaner once every few months. Yes, sometimes it’s frustrating, but if you have the right tools and a plan, it makes the “job” part of dog ownership so much easier!

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If this post was helpful to you, please subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss the next one! Drop a comment, and let me know your go-to methods when it comes to keeping your house and your dogs happy. Thank you for reading!

xoxo Mary

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