As a dog daycare owner and operator, the first thing I look for in a potential employee at my facility, Pup ‘N Iron Canine Fitness & Learning Center, is a complete and unabashed love for dogs. I know it would come as no surprise to fellow dogsters that this attribute is pretty easy to find. I mean, come on, seriously, who doesn’t love dogs? However, then comes my second criteria – a love and diligence for caring for dogs, and that includes cleaning up after them. Not as easy a find, especially when it involves cleaning up after 30+ dogs a day! And that’s our daily challenge. Our goal is to create and maintain not only a fun and exciting environment, but a safe and healthy one as well. An essential part of a safe and healthy environment is cleanliness, and keeping an 11,000 square foot facility clean and healthy is not an easy feat. It’s challenging, not only to staff, but for our cleaning equipment as well.

Pup ‘N Iron will celebrate our 4th anniversary last month. Some of our staff has come and gone, but one thing has remained constant: our use of Dyson vacuums. Within the first few months of operation, we realized we needed a higher level vacuum to handle the volume of dog hair that accumulated daily from not only the daycare dogs, but the 100’s of dogs passing through weekly in our evening classes and weekend workshops. We researched the best animal hair vacuum products and the Dyson name kept coming up. We purchased our first model, the DC Animal 14 at that time, and have been using it the past 4 years. So, when the opportunity to get the newest animal model, the DC 28 arose, needless to say we jumped at the chance! Granted, as a current Dyson user, we were an easy sell, but still, we were definitely interested to see if the company had, in fact, improved on their older design in both efficiency and convenience. Okay, I must admit, before testing the model at Pup ‘N Iron, I tested it at my house first. With 7 dogs, come on, do you blame me? The biggest difference I noticed between this newer model and our older one was the much more powerful suction. In fact, it caught me off guard at first. You can really tell this vacuum is digging deep into the carpet, and that it does! And like always, it’s not very pretty what comes out. The best way I can describe using a Dyson is, be careful what you ask for. In other words, don’t use one unless you really want to get at the hair and dirt, because a Dyson will show you exactly how unclean an environment you’ve been living in. What ends up in the canister is never a pretty sight, but what isn’t on your floor anymore certainly is! Next up was the real test, how would it hold up to cleaning the hair from 35 daycare dogs? In reference to hair pickup and efficiency, it didn’t disappoint. Like our previous model, I have to give it a 4+ paws up. However on the downside, just like I noticed, my employees definitely commented that it was definitely a heavier vacuum and because of the suction, took more elbow grease to use. It doesn’t glide across the floor, but from my perspective, any machine that glides is probably not going to handle the amount of pet hair and dirt we deal with on a daily basis.

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