A Virtually Dog Proof Kitchen Trash Can!

 Any of you that live with Beagles or other scent hounds realize the importance of dog-proofing the kitchen.  The Lovely and Beautiful Shane and I are currently doing a small remodeling project in our kitchen. As you may recall, from a previous blog post, we used to keep our trash can behind a latched door in the kitchen pantry. This was problematic because a simple latch is no match for a curious and motivated beagle. Beagles and scent hounds find the aroma of kitchen trash to be a highly motivating thing indeed!

The other problem with keeping the trash behind the latched door was that it was inconvenient. Anytime we wanted to throw something away, we had to deal with the latch and door.

We decided that we would rather have more open shelf and counter space than the enclosed pantry so, I removed a couple of walls and we are working on building a new counter and shelves. We are also installing some cool wall panels that look like stone work.  We are exited about this project but, we needed a trash containment solution that would deter motivated beagles and allow us convenient and easy access to the trash can.

Through much research, The Lovely, Beautiful, and Intelligent Shane found a really cool trash can manufactured by Simply Human. This trash can is a model that simply human refers to as "butterfly". It has a cantilever type of lid that is operated by a foot pedal. Because of the cantilever design, the lid closes very securely. The model that we purchased is slightly bottom heavy so, it stays upright pretty easily. We have had ours in the kitchen for about a month now and the dogs pretty much ignore it.

For a trash can, these units are a little pricey. However, we feel that this unit is well worth the price that we paid for it!

We bought ours at a clearance price from a local Bed, Bath and Beyond store. I suppose this would fall into the "beyond" department :) . I am not sure why Bed, Bath and Beyond stopped carrying this item. We really do like ours!

If you need help dog proofing your home, or if you need help training your canine buddy to be a polite little guy or girl, please contact me at any time.

Polite Dogs = Happy People.... Let me help you get happy today!!!

Till Next Time

-William