Facility Equipment and Tools that Require Cleaning and Disinfecting

Purpose

The short version: every piece of equipment that touches a dog, from play structures to food bowls, has its own cleaning routine and its own frequency. This SOP lays out what that routine is for each type of equipment and how often it runs, plus how the inside cleaning solution gets prepared.

At a Glance

• Large plastic play equipment: sprayed and disinfected daily, deep-cleaned with the pressure washer weekly.
• Small toys, balls, and tug ropes: soak in diluted Triple Two for about 10 minutes, then rinse thoroughly.
• Soft beds and towels: machine washed, and used rarely by design. Cots: cleaned with the pressure washer.
• Metal bowls and buckets: cleaned every morning through a wash-rinse-disinfect sink process, dish soap as needed.
• Paper bowls: one-time use, thrown out after each meal. A dog who tears theirs up moves to a metal bowl.
• Floor machines and wet-vacs: rinsed out, cleared of water and hair, and left open to air dry after every use.
• Inside cleaning solution (Triple Two) is prepared fresh daily and comes only from the dilution system, never mixed by hand.

Steps

Large Play Equipment

1. Spray down and disinfect daily.
2. Run the pressure washer over it for a deep clean once a week.

Toys, Balls, Tug Ropes

3. Soak in a bucket of properly diluted Triple Two for about 10 minutes.
4. Rinse thoroughly before returning it to use.

Soft Beds, Towels, Cots

5. Machine wash soft beds and towels; these should see rare, limited use in the first place.
6. Clean and disinfect cots with the pressure washer system.

Metal Bowls and Buckets

7. Clean every morning after use, running the multi-sink process: one sink to wash, one to rinse, one to disinfect.
8. Use dish soap on a bowl or bucket as needed alongside the sink process.

Paper Bowls

9. Throw out a paper bowl after its one use. Each meal, AM, Noon, and PM, gets its own bowl.
10. Switch a dog from paper to a metal bowl if they're tearing the paper bowls up.

Floor Machines and Wet-Vacs

11. Rinse the machine out and clear it of all water after every use.
12. Remove hair or other material caught in it.
13. Leave it open to air dry so bacteria doesn't build up inside.

Inside Cleaning Solution

14. Prepare Triple Two fresh every day in the spray bottles, mop buckets, and foot baths used around the facility.
15. Pull all chemical from the dilution systems, already set to the correct ratio, for every spray bottle, sanitation station, mop bucket, and floor cleaner.

Edge Cases

What if I'm not sure how long to soak a toy versus just rinsing it?

Anything that's been in a dog's mouth or on the ground gets the full 10-minute soak in diluted Triple Two, then a thorough rinse. A quick rinse alone isn't the standard.

What if a dog keeps tearing up its paper bowl?

Switch that dog to a metal bowl going forward, and clean it on the same daily wash-rinse-disinfect rotation as the rest of the metal bowls.

Where does the chemical in a spray bottle or mop bucket come from?

The dilution systems, always. Every spray bottle, sanitation station, mop bucket, and floor cleaner draws from a system already set to the correct dilution for our use, so nothing gets hand-mixed to a ratio you estimated yourself.

Who to Ask

If a piece of equipment doesn't clearly fit one of these routines, or a dilution machine or floor machine isn't working right, loop your manager in rather than guessing at a fix. For which chemical to use and how it's diluted, see Disinfectant Products and Equipment; for Triple Two's hazard and PPE information, see the Triple Two SDS reference.