Sweet Buddy
Cleaning up after an elderly dog isn’t easy when you don’t have the right equipment. In addition to trying to keep my house clean and sanitized during a global pandemic, I’ve been playing nurse to Buddy, our 15 year old sheltie who is in his twilight years. From soaking up messes with paper towels, to bringing in the shop vacuum. It’s just the messy reality of pet ownership.
Update: Sweet Buddy passed away June 6, 2020 at 16 years old. He was the “star” of my blog and home improvement projects. We miss him so much!
Here is what the CDC actually recommends for cleaning carpets:
COVID-19 CDC Recommendations:
For soft surfaces such as carpeted floor, rugs, and drapes.
- Clean the surface using soap and water or with cleaners appropriate for use on these surfaces.
- Launder items (if possible) according to the manufacturer’s instructions.Use the warmest appropriate water setting and dry items completely.OR
- Disinfect with an EPA-registered household disinfectant. These disinfectant meet EPA’s criteria for use against COVID-19.
- Vacuum as usual.
Lately we’ve struggled to anticipate Buddy’s needs to stay ahead of the curve (short of ripping out the carpet, which I actually did in a desperate moment in the last house).
There has to be an easier way to keep a clean floor, right? Well I found it! The Hoover SmartWash Pet Complete.
Hoover SmartWash Pet Complete
This post is sponsored by Hoover. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
New HOOVER SmartWash PET Carpet Cleaner is as simple to use as a vacuum: simply push forward to wash and pull back to dry. There aren’t multiple buttons, and you don’t have to measure the cleaning solution (the cleaning solution has it’s own special compartment and mixes into the water on its own). I love that there is a dry-only option in case you over-saturate the carpet.
My test
Just to test it out, I wanted to see how well it would perform on this pet stain with no pre-treatment…it worked wonders!
FlexForce™ PET PowerBrushes agitate and penetrate carpet to remove ground-in dirt, and an Antimicrobial Pet Tool to eliminate tough stains on carpets, stairs and upholstery. You can even use it in your car — no complicated machinery needed.
Vacuuming Carpets Isn’t Enough
While vacuuming removes surface debris, washing your carpet is essential to get a deep-down clean and to preserve carpets. (Something I don’t think the previous owners of our house did very often).
The Pre-Treat Wand
This machine includes the same intuitive features as the SmartWash Carpet Cleaner, with an added Spot Chaser Pretreat Spray Wand to treat set-in stains. The handheld components make it easy to clean furniture and car interiors, too.
No More Machine Rentals!
Now I can clean the carpets as often as I want. No more time limits to return the machine, no more dirty remnants on borrowed machines. And hiring a pro has proven to be expensive and ineffective. The cost of the Hoover more than pays for itself.
WIN a HOOVER!
a Rafflecopter giveawayHOOVER products are available at www.Hoover.com, www.Amazon.com and select retailers nationwide.
Be sure to comment below to enter and follow us on Instagram (where I share Buddy updates on a regular basis). Winner will be announced May 30th!
Thanks for sticking with us and good luck!
Cleaning during the pandemic happens a lot in the kitchen and bathrooms and often. Also making sure to get all the door knobs, light switches etc….Just making sure to hit all the surfaces.
Thanks Vikki! I was doing great on door knobs…but about a week into the pandemic I realized I was forgetting light switches. Thanks for the reminder!
We have a 14 year old golden doodle, so I hear you!
I LOVE a clean house!
Thanks for the info on this machine!
Sounds like just what I need!
Interesting! I’m in the market for a good carpet cleaner. Such a helpful blog! I will check this out.
Even without pets, this would be awesome. Good luck Kim!
We have dogs too,. We need something like this to clean up after them! Thanks.
I can’t even imagine 2 Buddy-type-dogs (Buddy is on the high end of high maintenance) and a mass producer of messes. We love him though! :)
We have a cat that spits up so this would be great to have at our house!
Mine too! Ugh he just started doing that. In fact, he graciously produced one in time for the demo video. Even my pets are trained bloggers :)
Awww your sweet Buddy! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the reminder! I vacuum a lot (our dogga sheds like crazy!) but I often forget about carpet cleaning! This machine looks great!
I was embarrassed to share how dirty the floor was (I vacuum a lot, too). You’d never know it, lol! But I’m so glad we have this now so we can deep clean whenever we want. It feels so much better, we’ve done every room.
Such a gift to have Buddy, your fur baby, he doesn’t look like he’s in his twilight years!
Hi Dottie, He does look young and spry in these pictures, but he’s begging for a hamburger which had his attention :) Believe it or not, he’s pretty weak / wobbly now. We have to carry him up and down the stairs sometimes. He had a seizure in April and aspirated…and ended up in the ER for 2 days. Vet advised we put him to sleep (as one option) but we brought him home for a bit longer.
Wow! Looks like it would work great on large area rugs also. Thanks for the post. Your information is always so helpful.
Buddy is beautiful. I know how hard this phase of life is, I’m glad you are treasuring it. You will know when the time is right to let him go.
And that Hoover machine looks fantastic. I could have used it many times. Our dog just turned 10; hopefully I will have many more years with her which means, clean ups!
Thanks for the tip, we have a 17 year old Shih tzu. She is like Buddy in her twilight years. She has gotten to where we carry her up and down the stairs, put her in the bed, and there have been days where she drags those back legs. She does have seizures but we just aren’t at that point of putting her down. She has days where she runs like a new puppy. Such a hard decision on when is the right time to let go. Buddy is such a beautiful dog. I know he has brought your family many years of wonderful joy. Enjoy your special days left with him. I know we will with our Lizzie. 🐾
I’ve been lucky enough to have a few Buddies in my life, too. Awww, the gift of unconditional love… I just have to say that Hoover looks like good clean fun to me!!
Hi, Jeanette! Wow, very impressed at how nicely that stain came up…I have a cat that throws up if she eats to much at a sitting (so I ration her a small amount at a time so she’ll thrive) and if I don’t catch her doing it, I’ll have a nice spot to try and get clean!!! I usually can do a pretty good job with Shout or Windex (believe it or not!), but this would certainly make life easier to get the whole carpet done at a time!! Anyway, thanks for sharing and whoever wins this, I am sure they”ll love it!!
I would love to have my own carpet cleaner to use whenever I wanted or needed. Rented machines are not very reliable.
We agree…and somehow we always let it sit too long and we end up with late charges. It’s been so convenient and we NEED it daily almost.
We bought Bissell long time ago and it worked really well, but when we had little bunny the fine hair got everywhere and even after detail cleaning of the machine it did not perform the same as before, so we are looking for new carpet cleaning. One tip I still use what my grandma used to do to freshened up the carpet is to put vinegar and water mixture in the bucket and dip your broom in it and sweep your carpet with it. She used the Yucca/Corn Fiber Bristles broom for that.
I love cleaning with vinegar and that’s a great tip that I’ve never heard before. Thanks for sharing!
I have been cleaning like crazy! I use bleach wipes on the door handles all the time.
The bleach wipes are so hard to find nowadays, but love them for door handles and surfaces. Thanks for sharing your tip!
We now have an 8 year old weim but your story of your dog sounds so similar to our last weim that we willed to live until her 12th birthday and we had carpet issues like you and we loved her and cared for her like you do. I’m a perfectionist in regard to clean and would love a carpet cleaner that truly does the job.
That Hoover floor cleaner looks amazing!
And sorry to hear about Buddy- so hard to go through this. When our 15 year old pup went through the same stage, we used a ‘belly band’ with an adult incontinence product as a liner and it worked great! It saved our dog’s dignity and our floors. :)
Caring for an elderly pet can have its own challenges. We have carpet in parts of our house & it is hard to keep clean. We have elderly pets & sometimes accidents do happen. I would love to have a cleaner like this!!
I had a handheld early version of this and it was so helpful! Would love to try out this version.
I am definitely going to check out the machine. I agree, pro cleaning gets expensive. While it is understandable we strive to keep things clean in our homes for ourselves, I also want to clean well for the health of my dog. Gives her a boost to live out her golden years which she is now in. Thanks for the info!
Our rescue dog is now 11 years old…thunderstorms are making her lose control of her bladder.
I never knew about this Hoover Pet cleaner!! This would be a game changer.
You Buddy is adorable. 😉
We have both a cat and dog and could really use this to clean up their messes.
I need this so bad!’ I have 4 inside dogs and 7 total 😂
Elderly pet bring new cleaning challenges that we’ve been dealing with seemingly forever! I didn’t know about the Pet Cleaner. What a great idea! Thanks for the information!
Love me some Buddy!
This looks like a carpet saver … I will need to look it up
It is often alarming to realize how little the average cleaning routine really does in getting areas REALLY clean! This sounds like a wonderful solution to that problem.
With a teenager, preteen, two year old , three adults, a standard poodle , house training Yorkie puppy , and six chickens growing large enough to go outside to their roost , we could really use this sweet efficient carpet cleaner ! Thanks for sharing and for the opportunity to win one !