Basic Clean Up Kit

Designed & Written by Penny Beeman, Yooper Paws of Love

When taking a dog out and about into public places, it's important that you are prepared to clean up after your dog.  This is true for pet owners who take their dog to pet friendly businesses and community events plus also important for Service Dog Teams. All responsible pet owners should be prepared to clean up after any mess their dog creates.

Basic Supplies That I use:

• Blue paper towel - sold in the automotive dept, but is more absorbent the napkins or regular paper towel.
• Poo bags - that's the black items that's hard to tell what it is in the picture, great for hiding the contents so you don't gross out people on the way to the trash.
• Lysol wipes - to clean up & somewhat sterilize the area afterwards.
• And 3 ziplock bags.

How it is Packed

Assembly is pretty easy:

• 2 sheets of paper towel folded up to fit in the ziplock. Then it's rolled up to squeeze the air out.
• 2 Lysol wipes also folded up to fit in their own baggie.
• 2 poo bags also folded flat to match the others. (No need for a baggie here)
• Then I place those items in the 3rd & final baggie and again squeeze the air out. 

This kit is small enough to fit in the bottom of a treat bag, toss in your purse, slide in your back pocket...pretty much anywhere. 

I make 3-4 up at the same time and keep them handy every time I'm out and about. Then I keep extra supplies in my car if I need them.

I've actually handed these out to far more people in need then I've used on messes my dogs have made. But it's very lightweight, easy to prep, and not very costly.

Sometimes I carry larger supplies in my vehicle in case I need to replenish my cleanup kit or have a larger mess that needs to be cleaned up. The Pet Friendly Body Wipes came in real handy when Azul rolled in something really smelly and brown on a travel day. We had lots of stops to make on a 6 hr drive and without these Clean Up Wipes in my car I would not have been able to take him in anywhere.

This picture shows some of the additional supplies I carry in a backpack in my car to clean up larger messes such as a smelly Azul!

Canine Coach Michael has a really nice addition to his clean up kit that helps him clean up poop from his wheelchair. It's called a Go-Go Stick and allows you to attach the poo bag directly to the stick then instead of bending over you can lower the stick to the ground to clean up the poo. Some trainers even teach SD Handlers to use a stick like this to catch the poop as it's coming out. This can be helpful for blind handlers who can't see the poo and also those with limited mobility. The Go-Go Stick can be purchased on Amazon and at Walmart so I'm guessing they are easy to find elsewhere too.

You can see the Go-Go Stick Here!

This post written by Canine Coach Penny with assistance from Canine Coach Michael