Hard Wood Floors and Dogs

[MtyMax]

My current house has cream carpet through out :eek: (why???) and it is not getting along with the dog, husband, or cat. I am on my hands and knees scrubbing stains every single week and vacuuming constantly. As a result, I would LOVE to replace the downstairs (main living area of the house) with hard woods or Pergo.

The ONLY negative is that I know my dog will dislike it. She doesn’t like the ceramic tile in the kitchen because it is slippery and I’m pretty sure Pergo will be the same. One of the employees at the hardware store mentioned that the laminate Pergo is even more slippery than hard wood, but at this point Pergo will probably be much more cost effective.

Who all has hard woods? Do your animals cope? The cleaning will be so much easier and I won’t have to worry about all of the dirt in the carpet, but I’m nervous for my pup.

[BuddyRoo]

Loved hardwood and ceramic. Keep nails cut appropriately and lay down runners if needed. The pergo IS more slippery IMHO, but my dogs both did fine IF their nails were trimmed and the hair was trimmed in the paws of my SP.

I’d go for it. I freaking HATE carpet.

[Simkie]

I have hardwood throughout. It is 3/4" hickory planking, with a smooth finish (not hand scraped.)

The dogs do fine. Keeping the toenails trimmed and dremmeled short is IMPERATIVE, though. If the nails get long enough to click on the floor, the dogs will start sliding and scratching the wood. Works out just fine for me, actually, as the noise of nails on the floor drives me to distraction, so I have a very obvious reminder when it is time to pull out the dremmel and clippers. It works out to doing something with the nails about once a week or so.

I would not ever go back to carpet. LOVE the hardwood!!

[EqTrainer]

I hate carpet. My dogs are busy putting a lovely patina on my pine floors. I think they call it distressing in the furniture world? They could hire my beasts! FWIW they think sliding on the floor is funny…

[hasahorse]

My whole house is hardwood with the exception of the kitchen and bathrooms. Our girl has been on it since she was a puppy, our boy for about 3 years (we got him as a 2 year old). Neither have any problems. The only slipping is when they are going to fast around a corner or trying to beat me up the stairs. Our hardwood is old - original to our 1907 house, so they really can’t hurt it at this point. After 100 years, it is not going to look perfect.

I can’t even imagine having carpet.

[KateKat]

You can also get socks for the dog…with little traction pads I actually tried this for my dog because he slips and slides on the tile. Worked pretty well.

[cowboymom]

I have actually rather a soft wood, red fir, floors and five dogs. They scratch it up when they play but this floor is also about 100 years old and I don’t fuss about the scratches too much. My brother put in brand new beautiful expensive hardwood floors with two spazzy labs-his floors are destroyed.

I’d rather have hardwood with scratches and area rugs than anything else.

[JanM]

A friend put in solid Walnut floors, and her daughter’s German Shepherd/whatever cross scratched the daylights out of it even with runners everywhere.

My older Mini Schnauzer hated my laminate floors, and didn’t like the ceramic in the kitchen and in front of the doors. He couldn’t walk on the laminate without panicing, and skidding all over. I bought cheap sheet vinyl remnants, cheap area rugs, and used a few rug remnants (found at the back of the big box stores, and are definitely ugly, but he walked on those just fine. After surgery with general anesthetic he suddenly didn’t care about the floors, so I guess there was some damage there mentally.

Another friend got the darker bamboo, and it has scratched from the cat’s paws getting litter particles, they transfer to the floor and scratch. There is no way to stop the scratching either. The darker bamboo is a little softer than the light bamboo, but still much harder than regular woods.

There is laminate that is something like 12mm thick, and it should be comparable in feel, and more scratch proof than the wood is. However, laminate adds no value to your home, while hardwoods do. I don’t know if that is true everywhere, and if the quality of the laminate makes a difference either.

[Simkie]

@JanM;6666488

Another friend got the darker bamboo, and it has scratched from the cat’s paws getting litter particles, they transfer to the floor and scratch. There is no way to stop the scratching either. The darker bamboo is a little softer than the light bamboo, but still much harder than regular woods.

Most bamboos are actually quite a bit SOFTER than other hardwoods. There is a specific species that is harder, but it’s hard to find and the majority of bamboo flooring is the softer stuff. The dark bamboo is particularly soft, and is about as hard as some pines. It is not at all hard and one should not expect it to hold up to hard use.

I went with hickory because it’s the hardest “regular” hardwood floor out there. It’s really held up well, and only has scratches from when I have let the dogs nails get too long, and then really only scratches where the dogs turn at speed.

[jetsmom]

they are also making a ceramic tile that looks like scraped hardwood. May have enough grooves/ridges to make it not as slick for the dogs.
Otherwise, go for hardwood since it can be refinished if you ever need to sell. And put down carpet runners and area rugs to help the dogs with traction.

[LauraKY]

We put Pergo in my old house as we were getting it ready to sell. My poor collie was unable to walk on it, freshly groomed, nails and pads trimmed. I’d got with a handscraped wood floor.

[Roxyllsk]

I have hardwood and it’s about trashed in front of the doors from the dogs. It was not my choice, my ex put it in.

If you have carpet and dogs, you really need to get a Spot Bot. It is a life saver when it comes to ‘accident’ cleanups. Only problem is that sometimes you can tell how dirty the rest of the carpet is because you’ll have really clean spots !

But I also own a steam cleaner, and do the house a few times a year myself.