How to Wash Your Hands with Soap and Water or Hand Sanitizers

Everyday it seems like there are more stories in the news about contagious illness, cold & flu, and even the very terrifying antibiotic resistant superbugs, or nightmare bacteria. In an article on CNN written by Ben Brumfield reported that seven patients at a Los Angeles hospital have recently caught CRE (carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae) after routine treatments for bile duct, gall bladder or pancreas. You can go directly to the full story on CNN by clicking on this link.

The author also states that CRE is part of a family of bacterial usually found in hospitals and other health care facilities that have evolved a huge resistance to antibiotics. Fortunately, you don’t get it when somebody sneezes on you. You have to touch an infected wound or stool, than touch a vulnerable part of the body - like an open wound. That’s why if doesn’t spread on the street but instead in hospitals where it can accidentally be spread by touch.

The article also goes on to encourage cleanliness as a good way to fight the spread. This is probably how the article should have stated because it is so simple and beneficial. This means washing hands, sterilizing instruments, and if you are in a hospital reminding the staff to do the same.

Washing hands regularly is extremely important to reduce the spread of germs and bacteria. The CDC suggests when and how to wash your hands to help stop spreading germs from one person to another on their website.  Here is a helpful link to the Wash your Hands page on the CDC.Gov website.

The CDC Recommends that you would Wash your Hands When:

• Before, during and after preparing food
• Before eating food
• Before and after caring for someone who is sick
• Before and after treating a cut or wound
• After using the toilet
• After changing diapers or cleaning a child that has used the toilet
• After blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing
• After touching an animal, animal feed, or animal waste
• After touching garbage

What is the Right Way to Wash your Hands?

• Wet you hands with clean, running water (warm or cold), turn off the tap, and apply soap
• Lather your hands by rubbing them together with soap. Be sure to lather the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails
• Scrubs your hands for at least 20 seconds, Need a timer? Hume the “Happy Birthday” song from beginning to end twice.
• Rinse your hands well under clean, running water
• Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry them

What should you do if you don’t have soap and clean running water?
Use an alcohol based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol. Alcohol-based hand sanitizers can quickly reduce the number of microbes on hands in some situations, but do not eliminate all types of germs.

Hand sanitizers may not be as effective when hands are visibly dirty or greasy, How do you use Hand Sanitizers?

• Apply the product to the palm of one hand (read the label to learn the correct amount)
• Rub hands together
• Rub the product over all surfaces of your hands and fingers until your hands are dry

A few simple steps in cleanliness may help reduce the spread of germs that cause illness. It is simple and not time consuming.

There are also products to clean and disinfect hard porous surfaces such as tables, seating surfaces, door knobs, etc. For more information on these products and how they work, please see our previous article “Surface Disinfection for Cleaner & Healthier Living”.

Incontinence Underpads can be used for puppy potty training to protect floors from accidents

Reusable bed pads are an awesome puppy or dog potty training option. The term "piddle pad" is a cute way of describing this use of underpads. These pads are heavy duty enough to withstand those claws and paws and have the ability to soak up urine quickly. Most of all they help protect floors and carpeting from smells, stains and messes. These pads were specifically designed to be used to cover beds and seating surfaces to protect them from human urinary incontinence leaks, but we have personally found that they also work great to help keep our floors and carpets protected from pet messes and accidents. 

Many people prefer disposable underpads for this task. In fact, many pet stores carry pads specifically marketed to use with dogs, but they appear to me to just be a moderate to heavy absorption disposable underpads with special K9 specific packaging and marketing. I think that for many people disposable pads are very convenient and will work fine for dog potty training, but we found that we prefer the reusable pads.

First of all it is important to point out that we are a dog family. We have two wonderful 60 pound mutts that have access to the outdoors though a doggie-door. We have also recently adopted a 14 pound Cavalier King Charles Spaniel that we have named Abbigale, or Abby for short. Due to her size we have decided to not train her to use the doggie-door and get free access to the outdoors.

She was a rescue dog and although she is not a puppy she was never properly potty trained. We honestly have no idea what her background was like, but she is kind and sweet and pretty much rules the household at this point. She fit right in with the other dogs without a problem.

She is doing really well, but when we do have to leave her alone we have chosen to put her in an extra bedroom with her bed and toys. Rather than closing the door we have a see through/ walk through baby gate in the doorway so she can see the other dogs and what is going on in other parts of the house. We leave the reusable underpaid in doorway on her side of the gate and it works perfect when she can’t hold it any longer. We have had no accidents on the carpet and the when we come home the pad is never crumpled or bunched up even if it has been used. Luckily she is never alone for long, but when she needs to go and there is nobody home we can know that she is not destroying floors or carpets.

We prefer the Plaidbex Plaid Reusable Pads from Beck’s simply because they look a bit nicer than a white surfaced pad for this purpose. The top absorbent part of the pad is a very nice looking plaid pattern and the vinyl waterproof backing on the bottom is blue. They are also very high quality and withstand the abuses of the dog as well as being washed over and over again. They are designed to be washed by industrial laundry services, so they can easily withstand the heat and washing provided by our home washer and dryer. 

Directions for washing Beck’s Reusable Underpads are simple:

• Machine wash in normal setting
• Don’t put bleach directly on pads
• Don’t use fabric softeners
• Dry on normal settings

We have washed our underpads many times now and they do not show any signs of wear and tear. I have heard that some lower quality pads start to having problems with the vinyl material used in the waterproof backing after multiple washings, but we are not seeing any of this type of issue.

We keep three pads on hand  so that we always have at least one that is clean. They are relatively inexpensive, especially when considering the lifetime value of these well made pads. Beck's Pads are made in the USA of high quality materials. 

If you have puppies, dogs or even cats and have concerns about floor messes then the reusable bedpads might just be the solution you are looking for to protect those surfaces. Here's a photo of our camera shy model Abbey posing on her Paidbex Plaid Underpad.