How to remove pet smells and stains from your sofa

For many people and families, home is where your pet is... hence why knowing how to remove pet smells and stains from your sofa is the home and pet-owners hack for domestic happiness. Irrespective of how well-trained your furry friend is, accidents happen and it's best to be well-prepared when it comes to tackling stains and smells.  When it comes to dealing with the smells and stains that inevitably end up in every family, pet-friendly home, it's important to establish what you're laying out to do. Is your pup a loyal sofa-side companion who will undoubtedly be jumping straight back on the sofa the minute it's clean? Or, have you trained your furry friend to stick to their own bed? This question will help you to decide whether it's a case of masking smells and putting in preliminary measures to prevent future stains (or even purchasing a pet-friendly fabric in the first place), or a deep cleaning one-time process. Below is Leo, a rescued Picardy Spaniel from a shelter in Spain on our 2 seater Loft  Credit: @jb_new on Instagram

How to shop for a pet-friendly sofa

Our guide to an easy life when pairing pets with interiors and sofas is shopping for fabrics that are hydrophobic. By this, we mean leather and manmade fibres such as polyesters and Omega velvet that can't absorb grease or oil. These fabrics are ideal for avoiding the consequences of spillages and pet-accidents. Any spillages will simply sit upon the yarn and be easy to clean.

How to clean dog hair from your sofa

  Common mistake when cleaning pet hairs from your sofa:   Golden rule: You should never vacuum the front border of a cushions of your sofa if they have feathers in them. The reason for this is that it will pull the feather through the cambric. Yes, the frame can be gently vacuumed if necessary but when it comes to the cushions, it's a different story. If a sofa is only feather and down and it doesn't have a foam core up to the front edge of the sofa, never run a powerful vacuum cleaner over it. Make sure your vacuum has a very low setting or you can vacuum by pulling the pretty case away from the interior feathers or avoid it altogether.

How to protect your linen or cotton sofa from stains:

Cotton and linen are more complex materials when it comes to stains and smells. The problem is that the smell gets into the yarn as they are hydrophilic. When it comes to buying a Raft sofa we don't recommend add-ons. Therefore, if you do choose to use a stain guard on your sofa, do so with consideration of the fact that it may alter the makeup of your fabric. This is where considering if the toll a stain guard might take on your fabric outweighs the inevitable puppy paw and accident stains. We recommend checking who manufactured your fabric and contacting the fabric house independently to get advice that is unique to your fabric. At Raft, we sell a lot of stain guarded products so that you're protected from the outset. However, if you're looking to insure another fabric, we offer an insurance policy on all of our furniture at an incredibly low price of £40 a seat for 5 years. Credit: @number19greenwhich on Instagram 

How to mask pet smells: 

If you're dealing with a fabric that is hydrophilic and absorbs smells and stains due to a natural yarn, you will need to remove the cases on your sofa cushions and either send them off for dry cleaning or wash them yourself on a very low temperature and then leave them to dry naturally and stretch them out to their original shape when they are damp. We recommend cleaning all cushions and seats at the same time in order to keep a uniform pigment. We definitely recommend dry cleaning as the superior method for tackling pet smells and stains. It's the most effective and damage-proof method and will actually allow the makeup of the fabric to keep its natural stain guard. However, if you're dealing with pets that are constantly up on the sofa, perhaps it's a case of consistently masking smells rather than a deep clean. In that case, products such as Febreze will neutralise the smell (although don't spray too close as it can get in between the fibres and make a fabric patchy). Also, we'd steer clear of brush products as they essentially sandpaper the yarn. Below is Joni the Cockapoo on our Lambswool Herringbone Throw