Toucan Eco Gets Tails Wagging at Dog Day Care Centre

Goody 4 Paws, a family-owned day care centre for dogs in Manchester, is owned by Carol, Karl, and Tom Plumridge. Since 2007, it has provided a fun, stimulating, and safe environment for its four-legged friends. Now Toucan Eco Gets Tails Wagging at Goody’s Dog Day Care Centre, read on to learn more.

The 4,000 sq. ft play area stretches the legs and imaginations of dogs. It is the only day care centre in the UK with FUNgility, a unique play system from America. The centre also features rubber flooring and walls for safe play, protecting the joints of both puppies and senior dogs.

Their aim is to provide a safe tail wagging dog day care centre, as a second home to around 40 dogs a day, offering a welcoming place where they can feel safe and have fun away from their owners. It is local authority-licensed, with special provision to care for puppies from 12 weeks of age and also provides behavioural training sessions.

Cleaning Challenges for the Centre

Carol Plumridge discussed the unique challenges of keeping the centre hygienically clean.

“When dogs come here, they behave as if they’re outside, so they’re constantly doing what dogs do all day. Even though we clean regularly, the ammonia smell was a huge problem,” she explained.

“The disinfectant we used needed to kill canine parvovirus, which is highly contagious in dogs. DEFRA recommends using a disinfectant proven to kill parvovirus in multi-dog environments. While the chemical we use for this has no smell, the ammonia smell remains.

“To combat this, DEFRA advises using an odour neutraliser, which also smells terrible. It makes you cough, sneeze, and splutter, and if you’re around it all day, it’s not nice on your chest either.

Why not just use bleach?

“A vet would say to ‘clean surfaces with bleach’ to kill everything a dog can transmit. But we can’t do this because as we’re mopping, the dogs walk over the solution straight away, which would harm the pads on their paws. That’s why we’ve been searching for a solution that kills germs but is completely safe for the dogs.”

Frequent and Intensive Cleaning Regime

The team at Goody 4 Paws takes great pride in the cleanliness of their centre. Their reputation depends on it.

Throughout each day, they have five mop buckets constantly in use, emptied every hour, and frequently spray and wipe with trigger bottles. At the end of each day, all surfaces, including floors, walls, and dog equipment, are cleaned down, and a scrubber drier is used on the floors.

Previously, this would have required multiple products. Now, the centre’s entire cleaning regime is completed with Toucan Eco eWater®, and nothing else is used. The hypochlorous acid solution is made quickly and easily each morning using Toucan Eco Active, filling all the mop buckets Carol and her team need each day.

“When a dog has an accident, we mop up with the mop bucket, spray, and leave to dry. It removes any trace of the mess and completely eradicates the smell too. And we know it’s effective in killing canine parvovirus, providing peace of mind for the team,” Carol continued.

“I’ve also noticed a huge difference personally as I have skin problems on my hands and face. Previously, working with harsh chemicals all day aggravated my skin and caused discomfort. With Toucan Eco, there are none of these effects at all,” she added.

What is Toucan Eco?

Toucan Eco lets you make your own multipurpose disinfectant cleaner and sanitiser, which kills more than 99.999% of germs, from just water, salt, and electricity.

The solution is electrochemically activated by applying a small electrical current using Toucan Eco. This recombines the naturally occurring elements of hydrogen, oxygen, and chlorine to create a powerful disinfectant. This is known as hypochlorous acid (HOCl), and sodium, oxygen, and chlorine into sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), at a low concentration and gentle pH that creates a mild cleaning fluid.

It’s non-toxic and eco-friendly, and it can be used all around the workplace and home. It’s certified to EN 14476, EN 16777, EN 1276, and EN 13697 standards. Goody 4 Paws installed Toucan Eco Active, designed for small to medium-sized facilities, producing 10 litres of solution in around 15 minutes.

A Cost-Effective Solution

Goody 4 Paws used to spend up to £230 each month on disinfectant alone, not including odour chemicals delivered in 25-litre containers.

By switching to Toucan Eco, Carol and the team will save over £2,500 a year in cleaning solutions and around 500 plastic bottles a year.

This means the equipment will pay for itself within a year, with the only requirement being water, salt, and a low electrical current.

Cleaning Made Easy

“We’ve been using our Toucan Eco Active for just over a month, and already I don’t know how we managed without it.

Cleaning the centre is so much easier. We can make the solution as needed, and Toucan Eco has replaced the many different chemical cleaners necessary to ensure a safe environment for the dogs in our care,” Carol explained.

“We use it on everything from walls, corridors, reception areas, floor mats, dog play area flooring, feeding equipment, food preparation areas, even dog collars and leads to prevent infection.

“In the current situation, it’s also necessary to spray the dogs on arrival and departure. We decant the Toucan Eco solution into spray bottles, making this a quick and easy job, and it’s completely safe for the dogs and their owners.

“The staff find it easy and pleasant to use. It’s kind to skin and can be used as a hand sanitiser as well. The day care centre now smells much fresher without using sprays that only mask odours for a short time and were very unpleasant to work with.

“Toucan Eco is certainly proving to be the ideal solution for us. It works so well, it’s safe, and the smell is 100% better,” she concluded.

For more information, please visit www.goody4paws.com or follow on Facebook at www.facebook.com/gdy4pws.