OF PET CARE & PET HAIR
We all love our furry bundles of joy. And like any loving pet parent, we enjoy being close to them and taking them around to places we go—especially if it’s to a delightful dinner-party for pets and owners alike. Even more so if it’s all in the spirit of raising funds for the benefit of the rescue, relocation and rehabilitation of street animals!
This is exactly what happened in celebration of National Pet Parents’ Day, last April 23 at the Robinson’s Magnolia Garden in Quezon City. Pet owners and their cutie-pie pets flocked to the event grounds to attend the Bow & Wow Benefit Dinner for CARA Welfare Philippines, a non-profit organization dedicated to inspire and educate Filipinos about animal welfare, animal population control and the proper treatment of animals in our community.
The dinner event featured an adorable pet-buffet prepared by ALL4PETSParty and Bow & Wow, an all- natural pet store and longstanding partner/supporter of CARA Welfare Philippines. CARA stands for the Compassion and Responsibility for Animals.
Likewise, the pet owners had their own special buffet— sponsored by Margarita Fores’ Cibo di M—plus an inviting wine bar, sponsored by Planet Grapes. But perhaps most delightful to notice were the array of quirky booths open to participants at the event, which included a caricature station, design-your-own pup-cakes, pawprint keepsakes, and many others! The night was also made more interesting with a program that featured performances by Jonalyn Viray and Pole Cats Manila.
While we at Wheels had the opportunity to speak with pet parents, and discuss how many of them had ‘rescued’ their current pets from the cruel streets, we also took note that many of them had transported their pets to the event via their own cars. And while we all like to frolic in this fuzzy fiesta of cutie pies, the fact of the matter is – where animals play, hair will stay! And this brings us to our car challenge: At the end of the day, how does one clean his vehicle of stubborn animal hairs? Well, we asked our friends at Dyson for some car-cleaning advice. Dyson made it all look simple by demonstrating how one could unleash the sheer effectiveness of vacuuming one’s own car. The secret to it really, is knowing how to use each specific attachment – the type of nozzle you attach to the vacuum mouth, through which the suction takes place. And in the spirit of realistically tackling a common pet-parent problem, our model car for this demo was a 1966 Ford Mustang GT – owned by Mr. Eric Gustilo, who happens to enjoy taking his beautiful pet, Holly, for casual afternoon rides. And for this pet-hair cleaning mission, we used the aptly named Dyson Fluffy – a surprisingly easy-to-use, portable vacuum cleaner that runs on rechargeable batteries and comes with an assortment of attachments that I like to playfully compare with a surgeon’s tools, rightfully prepped on his operating table.
The first attachment that we used was the wide-mouthed one with the rotating brush. This effectively brushed out all the dog hairs that were stuck within the fuzzy carpet; plus, to my surprise, an enormous amount of fine dust that I would never have guessed was still trapped in there! Secondly, we used the long nose nozzle for those tight, hard-to-reach areas within the cabin (where hair has still managed to fly into); and alternatively, we also used the long-nose nozzle with the flexible shaft, for those elusive areas that can only be accessed via a long, bent device. For the wider spaces such as the floor mats, we used the hollow, wide mouth that could suck in all the dirt, including chunks of crumbled dog biscuits and leftover animal food.
It is in situations like these that it makes sense to deal with devices that are cord-free – but still light to carry – so as not to get oneself stuck in a predicament of annoying cord entanglement. A smallsized (but powerful) suction device is also proper, so as to be flexible enough for the owner to whip it out in different positions, in the various cavernous spaces of a car with ease.
At the end of the day, it makes total sense to keep your car clean both for your pet/s and for yourself (and family). After all, for any creature, health is wealth!