We got Zira’s floof out of our carpet | Hoover Carpet Cleaner Review

This post is sponsored by The Home Depot.

The Home Depot recently reached out to us and asked if we wanted to try out the new Hoover SmartWash Advanced Pet Automatic Upright Carpet Cleaner. As frequent Home Depot shoppers (and owners of a corgi mix who sheds a lot), we immediately said yes!

• 

• 

Some pictures of Zira at a Home Depot shopping trip back in January.

They promptly sent us the Hoover carpet cleaner and we couldn’t wait to try it out! As you can see, Zira is always excited to get something in the mail.

• 

• 

The unboxing and setup was super simple. Here’s a look at everything you get in the box*.

• 

• 

*Zira the Corgi not included. Click on the images for a closer look.

It even comes with some small bottles of cleaning solutions which was a nice surprise. However, The Home Depot did advise us to get the 64 oz. 2X Deep Clean PET MAX 3-in-1 Carpet Solution separately, because you’ll definitely need more than what comes in the box if you’re going to do a deep clean of wall-to-wall carpeting.

There are easy to follow instructions in the box that explain how to put it all together. It took me maybe 5 minutes to get it all ready. Once it was all set up, it was time to clean (and put Zira in another room, since she’s not a huge fan of the vacuum sounds, and watching it suck up all her fur might be traumatizing)!

As with any carpet cleaner, you’re supposed to vacuum the area first. We did this and were still so shocked to see how much fur and random carpet gunk this thing cleaned up. Ever since we got Zira back in November, we haven’t used a carpet cleaner–just a vacuum. There was SO much corgi floof in our carpet that the vacuum wasn’t getting. Here’s a before and after picture!

Not to mention that using the carpet cleaner is a painless experience. It has sensors that automatically detect whether you’re pushing forward or pulling backward. When you’re pushing forward, it disperses the cleaning solution, which it automatically mixes with water. When you’re pulling back, it dries the carpet. You don’t have to touch any buttons or anything–it just does it for you! It also has a handy “dry only” option for when you’re done cleaning.

If you have carpeted stairs like us, you’ll be happy to know the Hoover comes with a stair-cleaning tool. We tried it out and it’s such a life-saver, because vacuuming or cleaning stairs is always a pain.

All in all, we’re really satisfied with this carpet cleaner! It helps us clean more thoroughly than the vacuum without needing to hire a professional carpet cleaning service. We’re so thankful that the Home Depot reached out to us for this partnership program!

If you have pets and carpet, you should definitely check out the Hoover SmartWash Advanced Pet Automatic Upright Carpet Cleaner from Home Depot. It’s Zira-approved!

I acknowledge that The Home Depot is partnering with me to participate in the promotional program described above (the “Program”). As a part of the Program, I am receiving compensation in the form of products and services, for the purpose of promoting The Home Depot. All expressed opinions and experiences are my own words. My post complies with the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Ethics Code and applicable Federal Trade Commission guidelines. 

Getting ready for baby: Packing our overnight hospital bag

We’re now 20 weeks pregnant with our little guy and can’t wait to welcome him into the family! As the day gets closer, we’re accomplishing some tasks to make sure we’re as ready as possible. We’re doing everything from planning nursery themes to onesie shopping to reading parenting books. You can never be too prepared, right?!

One of the first things we’re accomplishing is packing an overnight hospital bag. We decided to head over to our local Kmart to pick up some essential items to help us through the labor and delivery process. Here’s what we’ve packed so far!

• Comfy slippers for walking around the hospital
• Toiletries and personal items, including lip balm, lotion, scrunchies, and a hairbrush
• Loose, lightweight sleep shirt
• Several phone chargers
• Gum and mints
• Snacks

We’re packing everything in this awesome five-piece diaper bag – we’re all about using things for multiple purposes and being frugal, so this is perfect for us.

This is just the beginning of our overnight hospital bag. We’ll be adding some more essentials we get closer to our due date. If you’re a parent and have any suggestions for us, feel free to let us know in the comments below!

Thanks to Kmart for helping us out as we get ready to welcome our baby boy into the world!

The BEST dog food for picky eaters

Ever since we brought Zira home in November 2017, she’s been a picky eater. She would literally rather eat leaves than dog food.

During those first few weeks, she would only eat food out of our hands. She’s nearly 2 years old now and it’s been a consistent struggle to get her to eat enthusiastically. We’ve tried numerous dog food brands, mixing wet food in with dry food, and we even had a period of a few months of making chicken, rice, and veggies to mix in with her food. She would be excited about these new things for a little bit, but would always go back to her usual ways of protesting her meals.

We’re so happy to say that we FINALLY discovered a food that Zira loves! It was a completely random find – we got a sample bag of this freeze-dried raw food at a pet store that we’ve only gone to a few times. We decided to mix it in with her kibble to see how she liked it. Turns out, she’s obsessed! When she kept scarfing it down, we immediately ordered another bag and it’s been smooth sailing for about 2 months now. She’s excited about eating every day, which is such a miracle!

The food is Sojos Turkey Recipe.

It’s the only thing that’s gotten Zira to be excited about the words “breakfast” and “dinner.” Plus, it’s super easy to use. All we do is mix it with water and add some of her kibble to it, and voila! You would never guess she’s a picky eater anymore.

You can get it from Amazon in a 4 oz. trial bag, 1.75 lb bag, or 7 lb bag.

Plus, it’s Amazon Prime Day so it’s the perfect chance to try them out!

As an Amazon Affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Zira and Ellie are going to be big sisters!

You guys, IT’S HAPPENING! We are filled with so much emotion as we share this news with everyone. We are SO excited to welcome a new member into our family (yes, a human one)!

t

This is by far our greatest adventure yet, even though our lives have been full of them – from Jesse moving 3,000 miles to live in California, to being pet parents to the best animals in the world, to double-proposing to each other at Disneyland.

Zira and Ellie are going to be the best big sisters!! They’ll have plenty of new duties, including food testing, toy testing, teaching the baby how to play, and serving as guard dogs!

We can’t wait for this new addition to our family to enter our lives. We’ll provide you all with updates as we prepare to welcome our baby into the world!

We adopted a cat and she’s THRIVING! | National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day

Today is National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day and we wanted to share our adoption story! Last year, we made one of the best decisions of our lives: We adopted a cat! It’s one of the most rewarding things we have ever done. Here’s the story:

We went to The SPCA of Monterey County in November of 2018 and instantly fell in love with this face:

She immediately accepted chin scratches and started purring like crazy. It was like she knew we were meant to be together. Plus, she had similar physical attributes to Zira (blue eyes and a pink nose with black spots!). We just COULDN’T resist! So we made an on-the-spot decision to adopt this beautiful cat and name her Purrdita (named after Perdita from 101 Dalmatians).

The only thing we knew about her is that she was found on the streets, was estimated to be 3 years old, and the SPCA originally gave her the name Cecilia. Other than that, we knew nothing else about her story. But she just seemed like the perfect cat — and we were right! Apparently she loves living in our home too. Just take a look at how much she’s transformed since November of 2018:

Purrdita has gotten so fluffy and looks so much healthier. It’s so rewarding to nurture her and watch her live a happy life. She has the best temperament too. She always greets us with the cutest meows. Our lives are so much better with her!

Her and the dogs were a little wary of each other at first, but now they get along great! Zira cleans her ears, Ellie plays with her, and all 3 of them sleep on the couch together. Just take a look at the three of them in this video:

These three are the best 🤣 pic.twitter.com/VAklRopTyh

— The Donovans (@zirathecorgi) April 30, 2019

Long story short, we highly recommend adopting a pet when you can. Visit your local shelters and find a pet that’s in need. You’ll get rewarded with so much happiness – we promise!

Can you watch our proposal without saying “Wow?!”

If you ever frequent YouTube, chances are you’ve seen at least one video from FBE’s “React” series – their channel has over 18 million subscribers. Well, our proposal video was featured in one of their recent episodes! It’s the first one shown to the participants in the video. Can you pass the challenge by not saying “Wow”?! We can’t even do that!

Let us know how you did in the comments!

Zira & Ellie the Corgis named as top pet influencers

Zira & Ellie are among the top dogs of social media influencers according to Webfluential, an online platform that helps brands find relevant social influencers. Here’s what they had to say about our beloved pups and the rise of pet influencers in general:

“Zira is 5/8 Pembroke Welsh Corgi and 3/8 Miniature Australian Shepherd. Ellie is Zira’s half-sister. The Donovan’s, Zira and Ellie’s humans post pictures and videos of their daily lives and adventures with their beloved corgi mixes.”

“Influencer Marketing is not just for humans anymore. In the last year, dogs have made a mark on the influencer marketing industry. These days it is almost impossible to scroll through your Instagram feed without seeing a cute doggo. Some of these dogs have been collaborating with huge brands and making hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

We’re honored to be featured by Webfluential in this list of amazing dogs!

If you’re interested in Zira & Ellie telling your brand’s story, email us at zirathecorgi@gmail.com

Check out Webfluential’s full blog post.

Meet the Donovans!

Hi everyone! We’re the Donovans. You probably know us as @zirathecorgi on social media. But while being corgi pawrents is a huge part of our lives, there’s so much more to us – as individuals, as a couple, and as a family. We can’t wait to share more of our lives with you. So we’re starting now!

We’d like to introduce ourselves. If you don’t know yet, we’re Jesse (left) and Kasey (right)!

Jesse is an artist and Kasey is a freelance writer. Together, we’ve empowered one another to pursue our passions and become better people. Our love for each other has withstood thousands of miles, family drama, and difficult pasts. We lift each other up and our love is getting stronger every day.

You may recognize us from our video of our double proposal at Disneyland!

TELL ME WHY WE JUST PROPOSED TO EACH OTHER AT THE SAME TIME AT OUR FAVORITE PLACE I’M SPEECHLESS pic.twitter.com/UaKcQlRTnP

— ｊｅｓｓｅ🌿 (@virgoprincxss) August 20, 2018

This is just one testament to how truly magical our lives are. Neither of us had any idea the other one was planning to propose at the exact same time. As we said in our interview with Cosmopolitan, “It was the happiest moment, at the happiest place on Earth.” And we had no idea our proposal would go viral. It was mind-boggling to go from proposing to talking on the phone with Cosmo for an interview and seeing our faces everywhere online. We even had people at Disneyland coming up to us because they recognized us from the video! The publicity of it all was admittedly overwhelming at times, but we’re so happy that the video has spread so much joy and hope to the world. It’s one of the happiest moments of our lives and it’s a blessing to be able to share that.

You may also know about us from this tweet about Zira!

MY DOG WENT TO TARGET AND LOOK HOW HAPPY SHE IS pic.twitter.com/Cdt2s2aI3p

— ｊｅｓｓｅ🌿 (@virgoprincxss) January 3, 2018

This was our first piece of viral content and it was just pure luck. We snapped some pictures of Zira, put them on Twitter, and suddenly all these big news outlets were making articles about it, including BuzzFeed, Complex, and Bravo.

But we also got a lot of criticism – both constructive and hostile – about taking Zira into a store that only allows service dogs. We learned a valuable lesson and used our platform to apologize and spread awareness about protecting service dogs and their handlers. We even made a blog post and video about shopping at dog-friendly stores.

Since then, we’ve been building a social media presence around Zira and everyone else we add to the family!

Here is a brief introduction to each of our lovely pets:

Zira is 5/8 Pembroke Welsh Corgi and 3/8 Miniature Australian Shepherd. She is the spunkiest, fastest, and most unique dog ever. Her favorite thing is to give us kisses and she wants to play all the time!

This is Ellie! She’s Zira’s half sister and we got her when she was already 6 months old. We call her Ellie Girl most of the time. She’s the sweetest, cuddliest, and laziest pup we could ever want. With Zira and Ellie, we truly have the best of both worlds when it comes to corgis. They have such different and unique personalities. It makes life fun!

This is Purrdita! We adopted her from the SPCA and she’s literally the best cat in the world. She lets you pick her up and pet her whenever you want. She always meows at you when she sees you and she gets along great with the pups. And while her name is Purrdita, we usually just call her “kitty.”

We have a lot more to share with you all – from our home renovations to our desire to keep growing our family (eep!), but that will all come in due time. We don’t want to overwhelm you with a whole bunch of information. But from now on, our social media profiles and blog will be geared towards our entire family instead of just the dogs. We’re excited for you to be a part of our grand adventure!

Follow us:

Instagram

Twitter

Facebook

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions About Zira the Corgi

As Zira’s loving pawrents, we get a lot of questions about her every day. Here are your answers!

Is Zira a purebred corgi?

Nope! She’s 5/8 Pembroke Welsh Corgi and 3/8 Miniature Australian Shepherd. She has the body of a Pembroke Corgi with the blue merle coloring of an aussie. This mix is commonly called an “augi” or “auggie.” Her mom is a mix and her dad is a purebred tri-color corgi.  Here are some pictures of Zira with her mom, whose name is Tesla!

Where does Zira’s name come from?

We named her after the character Zira from the Lion King II: Simba’s Pride. Both of us are huge Disney fans, but we didn’t want to name her something too common. While we were looking through Disney names, Zira just stood out and we think it’s the perfect name for her!

Is she deaf/blind/a double merle?

No, no, and no. A lot of people assume she’s a double merle, which is the result of breeding two merle dogs and often results in a myriad of health problems. Thankfully, this is not the case (as her dad was a tri-color corgi with no merle gene) and she has excellent hearing and sight.

Does she know any tricks?

Yes! As of writing this post, she knows “sit,” “down,” and “shake” (for shaking our hands).

How much does/will she weigh?

Zira currently weighs 15 pounds and we expect her to be between 20 and 25 pounds when she’s fully grown.

Can I send Zira free products for her to post about?

We carefully choose the brands we work with. Plus, we have rates for sponsored posts. If you’re interested in working with Zira for promotions, you can contact us here.

Who is Zira’s breeder?

We’ve decided to only tell people we know personally about Zira’s breeder. Sorry!

Do you have more questions about Zira that we didn’t address? Leave them in the comments below!

Zira the Corgi LOVES Shopping At These 5 Dog-Friendly Stores

By now I’m sure you’ve seen the viral post of our dog Zira in a shopping cart at Target. Upon seeing those photos, you may have wondered, “Can I bring my dog into Target?” Well, we’ve learned that the answer is no. Since our pictures took the Internet by storm, we’ve learned a lot about the laws and store policies that are in place to protect service dogs and their handlers. Although we had seen other dogs at our local Target and the employees and managers asked to pet Zira, we realized it was still a mistake to bring her in because, regardless of the individual circumstances, Target is a service dog-only store.

While Zira is a calm, well-behaved pup who would never harm a soul, not all dogs are. Some dogs may distract–or even attack–service dogs who have important jobs to do. A distracted or attacked service dog may cause the handler to get injured or even die. This is why it’s so important to adhere to laws and store policies.

Thankfully, we’ve also learned that there are plenty of establishments that allow dogs! We took Zira on a shopping trip to show her all the places she’s welcome. And guess what–she had a blast!

*It’s important to note that the stores on this list may leave it up to managers to decide whether their specific locations allow non-service dogs. Additionally, some may only allow dogs if they’re on a leash or of a particular size. To be sure you can bring your pup inside one of these places, call ahead and find out your local store’s policy.*

1. Home Depot

“Look at all of this lumber! WAIT. Are you finally building me my dream doggy mansion?!?”

2. Ross

“This place is so cool! Even dogs can dress for less!”

3. Marshalls

“I picked out a bed and a donut toy! This is the best shopping trip ever!”

4. Michaels

“Is this where you’re getting supplies for my Etsy shop?!”

5. PetSmart (and Other Pet Stores)

“I get new toys and treats, PLUS I get to meet new people and dogs?! PetSmart is my favorite!”

Let me know what your favorite dog-friendly stores are!

Want more blog posts like this delivered straight to your email? Click here to sign up for my newsletter!