floor cleaning with machine in dog kennel

Contributed by Kaivac.

Lots of concerns materialize when pet owners must look for a kennel before they can go away on a business trip or vacation. One of the first concerns is just finding one. In such cases, the best person to ask is your pet’s veterinarian. They may not always recommend a kennel. Instead, they will likely offer the names of nearby kennels in the area.

Some pet owners look to see if there are any certified kennels in their community. The Pet Care Services Association (PCSA) does certify kennels and kennel owners must meet more than 250 standards to earn certification. However, this is a voluntary process, and according to Liane Ehrich, a certified veterinarian technician in Tucson, Arizona, “not all kennels bother with it.” In fact, many kennels do not even know about it.

If the best we can get are only referrals from veterinarians, not recommendations, and few kennels are certified, in a sense, we are back to square one. But Ehrich says there is one way to address this situation: visit a kennel and take a tour before boarding your animal there.

"A good kennel should be largely odor-free," he says. "It should also be well lit and attended by diligent staff. Of course, sanitation is also key. The living and playing areas should look and smell clean and be free of waste and urine to prevent spreading disease."

So, pet owners should focus on sanitation, that’s key according to Ehrich. But keeping a kennel clean, odor-free, and sanitized to help prevent the spread of infection is easier said than done.

Christa Guenther knows this all too well. The 58-year-old grandmother started a kennel with her husband in Elk Mound, Wisconsin, about five years ago. She soon found keeping the facility clean far more challenging than anticipated.

"It's constant," she says.

She and her husband put together a cleaning schedule that includes daily maintenance tasks; weekly deep cleaning tasks; and a strategy for attending to emergency messes in as fast and efficient a way possible.

“For the most part, we used good old-fashioned elbow grease and mops to clean the floors,” Guenther says. “It was time-consuming and physically draining… and my staff and I were never fully satisfied with the cleaning.”

Looking for answers, she reached out to a friend who works at a local convenience store. Guenther recalls that the restrooms in the store have been always clean and fresh smelling, just what she wanted for her kennel. But how were they doing this?

To find the answer, her friend introduced Guenther to the Kaivac No-Touch cleaning system. Using the No-Touch system, the machine applies a cleaning solution to all walls, fixtures, floors and other surfaces that need cleaning. The same areas are then power rinsed. This step essentially “blasts” soils from surfaces. Then the moisture and soil combination are vacuumed up by the machine.

A quick and easy process that takes about one-third the time as mopping. As to effectiveness, many new Kaivac users say the first thing they noticed after using the machine is that “all the odors are gone.”

The odors are typically the result of pathogens on surfaces, so if the odors are gone, most likely, so are the pathogens.

After seeing the machine demonstrated, Guenther knew she had to have one. Now, nearly three years later, the machine has been nothing less than a godsend. The kennel is clean, odor free, customers are happy as are their pets, and the Kaivac machine has helped the kennel earn its name, Wagging Tail Ranch.