Pawscessories is reader-supported. When you buy via links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no cost to you.
Learn more.
Does your house smell like your dog? It can be quite prominent to the smell of a dog in your home and frustrating to get rid of. However, there are some easy steps you can take to remove a dog smell from your house.
In this article we are going to discuss:
- 9 Simple steps to get dog smell out for your house
- 6 tips to prevent dog smell from taking over your house
- How to even tell if your house smells like dog (harder than you think)
- How to remove dog smell from carpet
And more…
Table of Contents
How To Get Dog Smell Out Of Your House
1.) Vacuum, Sweep, & Mop Your Floors
The very first thing you should look to do when trying to make your home smell better is to clean up your floors. Remove all the dirt particles your dog drags through the house. This includes getting rid of their hair and dander too.
Start by sweeping lightly so you can pill up the dirt without sweeping all the dirt into the air. Dirt, dog hair, and dander are all very light so do this carefully.
This is also why you want to start with sweeping before using a vacuum. Some vacuums can blow air, spreading hair and particles.
Once you are happy with your sweeping, now you can bring out the big guns and start vacuuming. If you have carpets you will need to do this over, and over until every square inch has been vacuumed and multiple times over.
After your vacuuming is completed, you will want to move on to mopping all your hardwood or tile floors.
2.) Steam Clean Your Carpets
This next step is by far one of the most annoying. Especially if your house is full of carpets. How to actually get dog smell out of carpets is pretty straightforward, it just takes patience and repetition depending on the severity of the smell.
Vacuuming will remove its dirt, hair, and dander, however, if your dog lies down on your carpets frequently, there is likely bodily fluid that has seeped into the carpet.
In order to remove the order, it may take a heavy-duty carpet cleaner like a shampoo machine. You can also use some liquid enzymes to soak certain smelly spots on your carpet.
For some added help here are the highest reviewed products to help remove pet stains and smells from carpets:
No machine required
– BUBBAS Super Strength Enzyme Carpet Cleaner
Portable Machines
– BISSELL SpotClean Pet Pro Portable Carpet Cleaner
– Bissell SpotClean ProHeat Portable Spot and Stain Carpet Cleaner
Shampoo Machine
– Hoover PowerDash Pet Compact Carpet Cleaner
3.) Wash All Of Your Bed Sheets, Linens, Couch Cushions/Covers, Pillow Cases, Dog Beds, etc.
Once the main chunk of your home is cleaned look to start washing everything else that can hold odor. This can be your bed, sheets, linens, couch cushions/cover, dog bed, pillowcases, etc. Look for hot spots where your dog spends a lot of time.
These are likely areas where odor is getting stuck. At this point of these steps, you’ve cleaned basically everything in your house that could be smelly from your dog.
4.) Recycle The Air
Now that your house is spotless and your furniture is clean, it’s time to work on freshening the air. Open screened windows or doors to help new air cycle into your home.
This can also help remove some of the smell lingering in the air. You can also look into some air purifiers to help clean the air even further.
5.) Change Out Your Furnace Filter
After you have let some new fresh air cycle through your home check your furnace filter. It’s easy to forget about this and they need to change more frequently when you have a dog.
Replacing your filter will not only help reduce the dog smell in your home but also purify the air cycling through your home every day.
6.) Isolate The Remaining Odor Source
If all the previous steps have been taken but for some reason, you still cannot figure out why your house still smells, you might need to do some detective work.
You can use a black light to reveal secret problematic areas in your home. Urine, saliva, and other bodily fluids will glow when exposed to black light that otherwise would be invisible to you.
Here is a great blacklight you can use to locate dog stains that are not visible to the naked eye:
Blacklight Pet Urine Detector for Dog
7.) Use Odor Sealing Paint
In certain circumstances you may find stains on the walls or baseboards of your home, these can be a little tricky when removing the smell. The best way to completely eliminate the smell that comes from walls is with odor-sealing paint.
Drywall smell is probably the hardest thing to fully clean to eliminate odor (worse than carpets even).
8.) Use Scented Odor Neutralizing Sprays Or Gels
If all else fails you can add some neutralizing sprays to your arsenal to help combat the smell. These can usually do a decent job of masking some of the smell but rarely will they completely remove it.
Make sure to only select pet-safe products to avoid any harm to your pup. It might be a good idea to send your dog out in your backyard or into another room while spraying the air.
Here are the two highest-reviewed dog odor neutralizing gels and sprays:
– Fresh Wave Odor Removing Gel
– Zero Odor – Pet Odor Eliminator
You can also use scented candles or other dog-friendly products, just make sure your dog cannot get a hold of them.
9.) Call In The Professionals
If you have tried everything yourself and nothing seems to work, or maybe you just don’t want the hassle of doing it yourself, hire the big guns.
They know what they are doing and have the best chances of completely removing the smell from your home.
How To Tell If Your House Smells Like Dog
If you think your house smells like a dog but are not 100% positive, you are not alone. Over time the smells we are around all of the time become desensitized to us. So much so that you may have no idea how smelly your house is.
Within the span of a few breaths, we can lose our ability to detect new odors. It’s the same reason you can;t smell your own breath, your body odor, or the smell of your house after a few minutes. This is called olfactory adaptation
It sometimes takes an outsider to enter your bubble to let you know “hey, your house kinda smells” for you to even realize.
However, most of us won’t want to wait until someone else notices that about our house, so how can we refresh our sense of smell?
First off, you can get out of the house and spend some time outside for a few hours. The clean fresh air should help to cleanse your nose from the smell of your home.
When you return you should be able to smell what everyone else would smell when walking in your home.
Another trick from the perfume industry is jumping up and down in the room for a few minutes. The increased blood flow should briefly improve your sense of smell.
6 Tips To Prevent Dog Smell In Your Home
Now that you know how to eliminate dog smell in your house, let’s dive into exactly how we can prevent dog smell from taking over your house.
1.) Clean & Groom Your Dog More Frequently
Your dog is the main reason your house smells so the more often you can keep them clean the better smelling your house will be. Make sure to use good dog shampoos and consider dog cologne.
Bad shampoo can make things worse so always use higher quality shampoos.
2.) Keep Your Dogs Things Clean!
Making sure where your dog sleeps at night is clean will help tremendously to eliminate bad odor from your home.
Anything and everything they use frequently are going to start to smell, especially their toys. Also things like their bed, bowls, leash, collar, and harness should be clean regularly if you want to prevent dog odor from spreading through your home like wildfire.
3.) Keep the Carpet/Floors Clean & Fur-Free
If you can prevent a build-up of dirt, grime, and hair on your floors you will help neutralize dog odor. Try keeping your floors clean and fur-free as often as you can. Vacuum once every week at least to keep odor to a minimum.
You can also get one of the robot vacuums that can automatically turn on at the same time daily. This makes life a little easier.
4.) Purify The Air
Another great strategy is using an air purifier to keep your air nice and clean at all times. These can pull in odor particles and remove them from the air.
5.) Open The Windows Every So Often
Letting new air in to recycle the air in your home is another great way to clean up the air in your home. Get rid of the stale, smelly air and bring in the new fresh air.
Other posts you may find interesting:
7 Unexplainable Things Dogs Can Sense Before They Happen
106 Dog Quotes And Sayings (#14 Is Hilarious)
8 Ways To Tell If Your Dog Knows They’ve Hurt You
Citations
The Reason You Can’t Smell Your Own House
How to Get Rid of Dog Smell Without Removing the Dog
12 Hacks to Get Rid of the Dog Smell In Your House
10 Quick Tips for Conquering Pet Odors
How to Get Rid of Dog Smell in Your House (Because Honestly Fido Stinks)
