Wipe Your Feet

My dogs have been trained to wipe their feet when they come in from the outside, it was one of the easiest things to teach them other than 'sit' and it sure does help keep the floor a lot cleaner during wet or muddy seasons. The easiest way to teach them is if you have stairs in the house as soon as they come indoors. Preferably carpeted stairs that are easy to maintain and keep clean. I have older carpet and what I do is wait until it is dry outside and run the shop vac over them and if they get really bad, I run the carpet cleaner over them but don't make the dogs wipe their feet until it dries again. How did I do it? The first thing I did was call my son to the door every time I brought the dogs in (one at a time, of course!) then I stand at the top of the stairs, my son would stand at the bottom. I would say "go wipe your feet" and my son would clap twice. We did this every time the dogs came in from outside. It only took two days for both dogs to learn this, they were about a year old when I decided 'wiping their feet' was a better alternative than wiping off their paws and scrubbing the floor every time they came in. I think with a little more work, you could most likely get a dog to wipe off his feet on an area rug, maybe walking in a circle around the rug two times while telling him to 'wipe your paws!' I don't give them treats, I give them a moment of attention before I let them come upstairs into the rest of the house.