The Rug Saga

My dogs are getting old.  We've always had issues with our boy dogs, Chuy (13) and WT (12), marking furniture when they got mad or if a storm came through but Shea (10) has never really given us issues with messing in the house.  But over the last six months it has become painfully obvious that she has taken to using our rugs as her personal pee pads.  I took our living room run out of the house and gave it a thorough cleaning - complete with a good week of sun bleaching.  During that time we realized that we really needed a rug. It is nice to help absorb sound and concrete floors are hard, especially for Drew.  So I researched and brainstormed and decided that our rug needed a waterproof cover.  I refused to spend money on a new rug b/c it is really hard to train an old dog, especially when you don't know the cause of the issue (if it's more than age?).  I found a water resistant tablecloth on clearance and decided it was as good as anything to see if my idea would work.

I used a tutorial for making a pack-n-play sheet and used it as my basic instructions.  I did go ahead and buy some shower curtains and covered my rug first just in case the water-resistant part of the cloth did not include dog pee.  I did not want to wash my rug again! 

It took only a day once I got it in my head to do and you know what?!  It works!!  When Shea has an accident, the pee just sits there.  We can wipe it up and spot clean the cover very easily!  I have taken the cover off once to throw in the wash and steam mop the shower curtain part underneath but so far we have had no issues with smell.

Keith's only complaint is the rug cover is very bright.  It actually would work well in our room as our bed covers most of the rug and would give the room a nice pop of color.  Our current bedroom rug is in the garage as it suffered from Shea too.  I'm now in search of a colorful, yet not too floral and bright, water-resistant fabric to cover the second rug now that we know this works.  I'm not having much luck - well to clarify, there are lots and lots of pretty oil cloth/laminated cotton fabrics but they are crazy expensive!  So the search continues. 

I did try making my own to cover the dining room rug, which for some reason Shea has left alone but it clashes with the new rug cover.  Turns out a polyurethaned fabric is not washable, is very stiff and cannot handle Drew's dinner time messes!

Shea does not like that her pee does not soak into the rugs, so she decided to seek opportunities to go in the girls' room and playroom when the doors are left open.  We have repeatedly asked the girls to keep their doors shut but they are 6 & 7 and yeah, they forget.  They got a lesson in shampooing carpets, but we got real and found some self closing gadget that keeps the door shut for them in order to keep the dogs from sneaking in the rooms. 

Some ppl may say that we are crazy to work so hard just b/c of a dog.  But what those ppl don't understand is that we are all these dogs have ever known.  Just b/c they have gotten old and honorary doesn't mean we will send them away.  It was our choice to bring them into our home 13, 12 and 10 years ago and so we will work with the issues they have and do our best to enjoy what time we have left with them all...