getting the dog smell out of your car.

Between-grooms know-how from scruffyboy

The car is where the dog smell goes to live. It is a small, sealed, fabric-lined box that you then heat up in the sun, which is close to a laboratory setup for growing a smell. The good news is that the smell is not really in the air, so spraying the air does almost nothing. It is in the seats, and that is where you deal with it.

why the car in particular

Every time a warm, slightly damp dog sits on a fabric seat, he leaves a little moisture and a little skin oil behind. In a ventilated house that dries and disperses. In a closed car it soaks into the upholstery and the carpet, stays warm, and the bacteria that make the smell get to work. Dog hair makes it worse, because hair holds odour and works its way deep into the weave. So the smell you notice is months of small deposits, baked in.

step one: strip out everything washable

Boot liner, seat cover, the blanket he lies on, the lot. Wash them properly and dry them fully before they go back, because a damp blanket is the whole problem in miniature. If you have been letting him ride on the bare seat, this step is where a washable cover starts to look like a very good idea.

step two: get the hair out

Vacuum, and then vacuum again, because the first pass only gets the loose stuff. A rubber glove or a slightly damp cloth dragged across the fabric balls the embedded hair up so you can lift it. This is the least fun step and the one that makes the most difference, since you are physically removing the thing that holds the smell.

step three: treat the fabric, not the air

Now deal with what is left in the upholstery and carpet. A fabric-safe cleaner worked into the seats and lifted back out will shift most of it. For a lingering smell, dry baking soda sprinkled over the fabric, left for a few hours or overnight, then thoroughly vacuumed up, absorbs a lot without wetting anything down. Whatever you use, go easy and let it dry fully. Do not soak the seats, because damp fabric is where you started.

step four: air it out, don't mask it

Open it up and let it breathe on a dry day. Skip the heavy hanging air fresheners: they sit a fake pine smell on top of the real one and you end up with both. If the fabric is clean and dry, the smell has nowhere to come from and you will not need to cover anything.

the habit that actually keeps it away

All of the above is the deep clean. The reason you needed it is that a dirty dog kept getting into a clean car. Fix that and you will not do the deep clean again. Keep a washable cover or blanket down, keep a towel and a waterless wash in the boot, and knock the worst off him at the car before he gets in, starting with the paws and anywhere caked in mud. If he swam, dry him before the drive rather than after. Ninety seconds at the boot is the whole difference.

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scruffyboy makes the boot-of-the-car kit for exactly this, a waterless wash and a deodorising funk fix, so the dog gets clean before the seats do. Join the list for first dibs, or read the other guides.