Greener Choices For Our Five Dogs…

Having five dogs often poses some eco friendly dilemnas. For starters we have to constantly clean our white tiled kitchen floor. To make the cleaning process a little greener we always try to use all natural products such as the cleaning products range from “Seventh Generation”, their natural dish liquid is non-toxic, biodegradable and hypo allergenic and best of all it uses all plant derived cleaning agents. Seventh Generation estimates that if every U.S. household replaced a 25 oz bottle of petroleum based cleaner with a plant derived cleaner then we could save 86,000 barrels of oil. With those kinds of figures in mind we make sure to stay clean but also stay green…

Our Labrador "Brody" Keeping Watch in the Yard

The main source of dirt that gets trecked into our home comes from the back yard and is invariably carried in on the twenty (Yes Twenty!) pairs of paws that our five dogs possess. To reduce the amount of dirt we have to clean up we keep several “dog-towels” next to the back door and wipe their feet off before they get back inside. We have also had our entire ground floor tiled, this means less electricity spent vacuuming everyday, a simple broom can sweep the place clean in about 30 mins.

 Having five dogs means that there is always a need for replacing a worn out chew toy, dog bed or dog collar. In our search for green products we found these cool creations… These dog collars not only look great but they are made from recycled used bicycle inner tubes.

They are made by a company called Etta Says!, Inc and you can buy these green dog collars at their site;

http://www.ettasays.com/home.php 

We are going to buy our dog ”Huckleberry” a new collar and are going to try the “Cool Blue” stitched collar. Etta Says sells the recycled bike inner tube collars for around $28.00.

Other colors include Mellow Yello and Hot Red stitching.

These extremely green dog collars come in three sizes Small (11 – 14″), Medium (14 – 18″) and Large (18 – 22″)

We applaud Etta Says for their creative re-use of an otherwise wasted product and will let you know if Huckleberry enjoys his new collar.