There's pee, and there's poop. Poop is the one that is more dangerous, since it carries bacteria and disease (e.g., giardia), some of which are contagious to humans.
Some general tips:
- The pee pad is a good place to throw trash throughout most of the cleanup process, saving you trips to the trash can (unless you want to move the trash can).
- It helps to have a designated clean hand and a designated dirty hand, where one hand is doing the wiping (whether of Mordin's butt or of the floor) and the other is free to use the spray bottles, grab more paper towels, etc.
- Soap is your friend. Wash your hands thoroughly and regularly! (I wash once after each step 2, 3, and 4.)
- Sometimes, Mordin will tear up his pee pad. Be careful. Sometimes, there will be pee/poop under it. If he does this, grab a plastic bag from under the kitchen sink, test it for holes, and use that as a local trashbag instead.
- Sometimes, Mordin will move his pee pad holder. Be careful. There might be pee/poop under it.
If there's poop, before going into the pen or letting him out of the pen, first check for signs that Mordin stepped in it. Such signs include:
- The poop is smeared, flattened, or otherwise has a (partial) pawprint in it.
- There are poop stains on the floor. Inspect the floor from a wide range of angles to check for differences in reflectivity. Poop is not as reflective as the floor. Note that Mordin may have changed the precise geometry of the pen, since it has multiple hinges. This means that there may also be poop a little outside of the perimeter of the pen.
- There are poop stains on the floor of his crate (i.e., on the black plastic tray).
It helps to have as much light as possible. I usually use just the standing lamp (between my desk and the couch), but you could additionally use your phone's flashlight.
Save this information on whether Mordin stepped in his poop for Step 3. If you are unsure whether he stepped in his poop, you can also inspect his paws at the end of Step 2.
Make sure Mordin's relatively calm so that he won't run out of his pen, jump on you, or do anything crazy when you open the pen door. If he doesn't seem calm enough (e.g., if he's standing up against the pen walls), then just take a few minutes to sit on the couch and ignore him. (You can check your phone, watch TV, or whatever.)
Once he's calm, prepare a pet wipe (AKA a wet wipe for dogs) by taking one out and folding it in half. Place yourself by the pen door and keep the bag of pet wipes within arm's reach in case you need more. Open the pen door and call Mordin ("come"). While standing just outside the pen door, pull him between your legs so that you can squeeze his waist/hips with your calves/knees to hold him in place.
Start wiping. After each stroke, fold the pet wipe over so that each stroke uses a clean portion of the wipe. I use the wipe in ~1 inch increments, so each fold is about 1"x4". Use as many wipes as you need to until 1) there's no more visible poop, and 2) the wipe is clean after a stroke. Note that if his poop is really bad diarrhea, there can be small flecks of poop on his fur around his butt. I typically use anywhere between 1 and 3 wipes. As you finish with a wipe, you can gently toss it onto the pee pad for disposal later.
If you were unsure of whether Mordin stepped in his poop from Step 1, you can lift him up, put him upside down on your lap (with his paws up in the air), and visually inspect his paws.
If Mordin's paws don't have poop on them, skip to Step 4.
After you've wiped his butt, if his paws have poop on them, pick him up with your clean hand and place him in the bathtub. (I pick him up by scooping my hand under his chest, between his front and rear legs, and then hugging him with that one arm so that his back is against my chest and his back feet are dangling.)
Run the water in the bathtub. (Turn the knob counter-clockwise so that the knob is sitting at the 12 o'clock position.) You can do this from outside the bathtub, using your left hand to lean against the wall to help you reach the knob. You don't have to plug the drain; the water flows from the faucet faster than the drain can drain the water. Once the bathtub's faucet is running, grab the clear cup with a blue rim and blue bristles on the shower rack and fill it in the sink. Wait for the bathtub to fill enough so that all of Mordin's paws are submerged in water. This is to loosen any poop caked on his paws.
If you see poop particles in the water, you can also fill the other cup with water from the sink so that you can pour it into the bathtub to help wash the poop particles down the drain, since not all of it is going to drain with the water in the bathtub. (You can also just use the one blue cup for this purpose if you don't mind taking the extra time to fill the cup with water.)
Once Mordin's paws are submerged in water, you can turn off the bathtub faucet. Wait for it to fully drain, then pour water from a cup into the bathtub as necessary to wash any visible poop particles down the drain.
Once the bathtub is empty and cleaned, take one of Mordin's paws and scrub it up and down in the cup with the blue bristles. Dump the water and refill it in the sink. Repeat for each of his paws. Feel free to close the shower door while you're at the sink so that he doesn't jump out of the bathtub. (He's usually good about staying in the bathtub for me, but he might not be so well behaved if he's hyper about you being there.) If you see the water is exceptionally dirty for a given paw, feel free to give it an extra rep with a fresh cup of clean water. Also feel free to compliment him with "Good boy"s for staying calm.
If you see any new poop particles, make sure to wash them down the drain with more water from either cup. Put the cups back on the shower rack, upside down so that their insides can dry.
Squeeze the water out of each of his paws. If Mordin's well behaved, he should stay in the bathtub until you say "Okay" (with a little excitement), giving you the chance to wash and dry your hands. (Use soap, of course.)
When Mordin jumps out of the bathtub, his paws will still be a little bit wet, but don't worry about it.
Once Mordin's clean, the next step is to clean his pen. This is the most nasty part, and it can be very time-consuming depending on how much of a mess Mordin made.
At this point, you can let Mordin roam around the apartment. He should be pretty good about not going in the pen while you're cleaning. If he steps foot in the pen, sternly say "no" and walk towards him. He should back away out of the pen.
There are two cleaning solutions: Lysol and a vinegar solution. The Lysol is the yellow-ish liquid, and the vinegar is the clear liquid. Vinegar is for pee only, whereas Lysol is for poop. When in doubt, or if the pee touches poop, use Lysol.
If Mordin stepped in his poop, then you'll have to wipe the entire floor with Lysol. Start from outside the pen door (where he stood while you wiped his butt) and clean inwards. Once you can reach his water bowl, it's good to move it out of the pen so that no Lysol spray accidentally lands in it.
Make sure to cover every square inch and use a new paper towel whenever it gets dirty with poop. (I go through a ton of paper towels.) Also make sure to clean just a little past the perimeter of the pen (again, because Mordin can change the shape of the pen a little bit). You may need to do multiple passes over especially dirty sections. This includes parts where Mordin pooped directly on the floor, but this also includes any section where Mordin walked with poop on his paws. He mostly frequents the corner between the A/C unit and the pen wall as well as along the pen wall.
Even if Mordin did not step in his poop, you may still see some limited poop stains on the floor and on the walls from poop that stuck to his butt fur. Clean those spots, but you don't have to be as paranoid about cleaning all the floor surface area. Again, pay special attention to the corner between the A/C unit and the pen wall and along the pen wall.
The pee pad has a gray base, white lid, and a black clip. To open the pee pad, release the clip and lift the lid. There were originally three clips on the tray, but I removed two of them for easier cleaning.
I usually clean the lid first, both the top surface and its underside, before disposing the pee pad itself, since after the pee pad is removed, I go back and forth between the pen and the trash can to throw away trash.
To dispose of the pee pad, fold it in half to form a triangle, then fold the side corners in in thirds (kind of like you're making a burrito), and then roll it up (again, like a burrito). Dispose of it in the trash can by the kitchen.
The pee pad has a good number of crevices, and poop can squeeze between spaces, so make sure to check all around where poop lands:
- If the poop is partially on the pee pad and partially on the lid, then the poop can squeeze down under the lid. Once you've cleaned the top surface of the lid, lift the lid and check the underside and wipe that for poop as well.
- If the poop is partially on the lid and partially on the floor, then the poop
can squeeze under the tray and between the lid and the tray. Again, once
you've cleaned the top surface of the lid, lift the lid and clean the
underside and the top edge of the tray.
- Then, once you've cleaned removed the pee pad and cleaned the top surface of the tray (you don't need to wipe the areas covered by the pee pad), lift the tray, rest it against the wall, and clean the underside of the tray and the floor under the tray.
- If the poop is in one of the divots from a removed clip, the poop can squeeze through the holes on either end of the divot. Clean those holes from the top and from the bottom.
- If the poop is on the clip that is still in place, give it a reasonable clean, but don't worry about it too much; removing the clip is annoying, takes a little bit of practice, and is extra nasty, so just let me know and I'll give it a more thorough clean when I get back.
Other than that, if Mordin peed off the pee pad, the pee will run under the pee pad, so if you see any moisture when you flip it over, wipe it down with vinegar (or Lysol, if there was poop in the vicinity). Most of the pee will be on the rubber feet, so give those a quick wipe.
Regardless of whether Mordin stepped in his poop, clean the tray with Lysol. There's a black clip along the bottom edge of the crate's door that keeps the tray in place. Snap it downward so that the tray can slide out. (Cleaning the crate tray is the last step because you can earn yourself a little extra space once the pee pad is upright and resting against the wall.) Spray it with Lysol, wipe it, slide it back in, and then snap the clip back up. Ideally, the tray is still a little moist after wiping it (as long as it's just Lysol and not poop water) so that the Lysol can kill the germs.
(Wash your hands thoroughly and) pat yourself on the back. This whole cleanup process takes me anywhere from 20-45 minutes.