No to the couch
Her nails (even after trimmed) are beating up the couch. Not from getting on and off, but the times something excites her, and she sprints off or rams into the couch because she's doing circle time. Our 1980 couch is taking a beating. Okay... so the couch is old  ...but it didn't have a stain or tear until we got her. Now the threads are coming up everywhere. I don't want another couch until baby #2 comes.
How many of you DON'T let your dog up on the couch? I feel HORRIBLE because the couch is so comfy and her elbows are always scabbed from hard floors. Even with a doggie bed, she refuses to get on it b/c it's hot. This is day 1 practicing this new rule, and she was so upset i wouldn't let her on the couch, she climbed on my lap and made sure her paw wasn't touching the couch. Literally. ..and I said she's dumb? I felt horrible pushing her off me. Poor girl.
Maybe if I hear lots of people don't allow their dogs up, I'll feel more comfortable about doing this. |
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| I'm afraid I'm no help in that department, as our dogs spend more time on our couch than we do .
However...a couple of thoughts, would it work to train her to only get up on the couch (gently) when invited? Alternately...there is the solution (wimpy as it is), that we use...big couch-covering throws  |
| We don't let Barney up on the furniture. The only exception is the occasional time when my husband lifts Barney into his lap, so even then he's not technically on the furniture. Barney's fine with this because he's known nothing else.
My parents' sheepdog Maggie had always been allowed on the couch. Then last year they got a new couch and my mom was like, nope, no more couch for Maggie...Maggie was about 8 or so when the new couch came. She adjusted fine and still loves my parents...although there tends to be a Maggie-shaped indent in the couch if both my parents have been gone...but they've never seen her up there...  |
| Tasker is NEVER allowed on the couch!!! He does occassionally sneak up when no looking but KNOWS he isn't allowed.
I would think a big dog would be alot of unnecessary wear & tear. Ty OF COURSE is allowed to go where he wants  |
| Our sofa is more of a dog sofa than a humans sofa. Did you try finding a matching blanket or bed spread? Even if you just put it on half and teach her that is her spot. Cutting her off of the sofa cold turkey is going to be hard. Good Luck |
| Yes, my maltese is allowed to go anywhere she wants as well. ...even if she nests before she lays down. "No one throws baby in the corner" |
| Panda is Not allowed on the sofa at all. She is only allowed on the leather chair when brian holds her...she is allowed on the bed only when invited..and thats not often...she has her own comfy bed that i drag around room to room.....she is content to lay at the foot of the sofa as long as i am touching her.....
ps..you didnt see this...  |
Joahaeyo wrote: Yes, my maltese is allowed to go anywhere she wants as well. ...even if she nests before she lays down. "No one throws baby in the corner" |
| Drez is also not allowed on the couch, but that habit came from her first owners, not us. Our first 2 dogs were allowed on the couch, so we thought Drez would do the same. Nope! She wouldn't climb on it, and we grew to LOVE that! Once in a blue moon she would sneak up on it (when she could climb), but not often. It's gotten us so spoiled that we will continue that tradition with any future dogs. |
| Izzie always sits in the corner of our sectional. To protect the sofa I bought brown bath towels that match the color of our sofa. You don't even notice the towels unless you are looking for them.
Like this...except matching the sofa...I use the blue ones while the brown are in the wash.  |
| Nope! Not allowed on couches. We have talked about maybe letting him when he is older but probably not. If we did let him on the couch i think I would get some kind of blanket or such that Edgar would only be allowed to lay on. |
| one word:
Slipcover! many words: Some sort of throw on the couch. Look, the couch is now toast anyway. Unless you want to train her for not getting up on a new couch, just admit defeat, get the big throws, and enjoy the ability to toss your sofa right into the washing machine, sort of. |
| Mine are only allowed by permission, which is rare. I give a quick off command anytime Maggie looks like she is about to get up on the furniture. I don't feel bad about it at all. She's lucky to have comfy dog beds. |
| Oscar has never been allowed on the couch, or bed. I learned from my sister-in-law, who let her 105 lb sheepie sleep on both, which he trashed. In addition, he would growl if you tried to remove him.....stinker! So even though our first sheepie, Quincy Bear, was a darling little ball of fluff at 24 lbs when we got him at 12 weeks old, we never allowed him up on anything. The trend has continued with Oscar.
Honestly, Oscar prefers the cool granite hearth of the fireplace anyway, and at night, he's on the cool tile in the master bath, or in his enormous dog bed. Everybody wins! Having said that, it's tough when the rules change, especially when your maltese would still be allowed to get on the couch. Can you hear Yuki now? "Not Fair Mom!!!!!!"  Kids!!!
Oscar's Mom - Laurie |
 We have a couch, a love seat and a "doggy" chair in the living room. I have pillows piled up on the love seat, so there is no room for a dog. I a person wants to sit down there, they just move the pillows until they are comfortable. We have a leather chair that is a "doggy" chair. both the dogs lay on the seat and China, who thinks she is part cat, lays on the back of the chair so she can look outside. I always suggest people do not sit in that chair. It does get wiped down often. On the couch, where I usually sit, I have throw rugs on the seats. Violet rarely climbs on the couch, but China sits next to me almost everytime I sit down. She just lays on the rug on the seat. I take the rugs off and just put them through the wash. The color is the same as my furniture, so it works out for us. China also likes to lay on the ottoman that goes with the doggy chair. It also gets wiped regularly. So I have one that goes on the couch and one who doesn't. I came up with the idea of the throw rugs is from my brother who had a leather sectional and three dogs. He put throw rugs on all the seats.
Anyway, good luck with training Yuki. |
| Mine also spend more time on the couch than I do.
I almost got a shot of all three on the couch last night, but of course by the time I go to the camera Rags got up.
It's rare when all three are up there. No room... but hubby had gone to bed instead of falling asleep on the couch, so all three were up there. |
| You won't get any help from me on this one. Mine are amazingly gentle, plus the leather is very durable so no worries here. |
| No dogs on our couches...well until a month ago that is , kids let Merlin on the couch...he only goes on it when he is invited. Avalon will occassionally go on the couch....now Faith...she sneaks on the couch and is on it all the time lately....last week, I noticed dog goobers that seem tough to clean, so now the couch has a quilt and a polar fleece piece of fabric on it to protect the ancient cushions. When I see the dogs try to get on it....I tell them NO...OFF.....now to re-train the kids. |
| We have always let them on our sofa - until last summer when I got a new one. I am amazed that it only took one time to shoo them off of the sofa and they don't get up there at all.
They are allowed on the beds though. |
| Mine have not been up on the new couches and there not allowed too now, geez I waited 25 years for leather, so mine mine mine now. |
We never let dogs on the couch....until about 10 years ago... 
It is easy when they are pups, and never were allowed. Training them to stay off when they were always allowed before could be tricky. Poor dog, would be very confused. Imagine if you were no longer allowed on the couch? The dog may not understand, and get stressed, and develope undesireable behaviors due to the stress of not understanding why she keeps getting in trouble. And I don't know if it will be very relaible when not supervised... It would be easier with a different couch, but if nothing else has changed I see her getting very confused..Poor baby... We just bought a new set, and took an idea from another poster and threw sheets over them for the dogs...Besides, I like cuddling with them on the couch.... Good luck! |
lisaoes wrote: Mine have not been up on the new couches and there not allowed too now, geez I waited 25 years for leather, so mine mine mine now.
I AGREE |
| Fred's not allowed on the sofa's in the living room; I attempt to keep him out of this living room all together.
He is allowed on the sofa in our family room though. I am probably going to have to slip cover the sofa soon. I agree with Ron in that it's nice to be able to wash your furniture. I don't think it is a bad thing to want to keep your furniture in a nice state. Don't feel bad about setting limits with Yuki. It doesn't mean you love her any less.  |
I can't say anything. My husband's attitude is we walk on their floor why shouldn't they be able to sit on our furniture. I have old quilts and blanket that I keep thrown over the sofa and when company is coming over it gets popped off and folded up. Not sure why it is considered to be their floor  |
| My sheepdogs have never wanted to be on the couch or bed - they get too hot. Now the other dogs - they live on them!
I have fitted covers and love them. I can't imagine not being able to wash my couch - even if I didn't have dogs on them.  |
Truman gets to lay on the love seat in the rec room but NOT on the couch or love seat in the living room. We just redecorated the living room a couple years ago and, frankly, no one sits in there.  When you have a rec room, the living room doesn't get much use. It sure is pretty, though. I did catch Truman on the living room couch a couple of times and he jumped right down when I told him "off"..... Of course, he went right to the rec room and jumped up on the love seat! |
Well, this was how successful it was this morning.
She understands "OFF" the times I've used it, but it's a matter of me accepting that this is what needs to be done if we plan on getting a new couch. |
| did you honestly expect Yuki to forgo quality snuggle time
I think this situation was a little too good to pass up for her |
| Well, I guess technically in 2 of the 3 pictures, she's not really on the couch...more on your friend. |
lisaoes wrote: Mine have not been up on the new couches and there not allowed too now, geez I waited 25 years for leather, so mine mine mine now.
Lol. Now's the time then! Leather is so much easier. The only problem we have is with muddy foot prints on the couch. They wipe clean just fine but it is also annoying to have to wash the couch before you can sit down. |
ButtersStotch wrote: lisaoes wrote: Mine have not been up on the new couches and there not allowed too now, geez I waited 25 years for leather, so mine mine mine now. Lol. Now's the time then! Leather is so much easier. The only problem we have is with muddy foot prints on the couch. They wipe clean just fine but it is also annoying to have to wash the couch before you can sit down. I don't know about Lisa but as far as I'm concerned there will BE NO MUDDY FOOTPRINTS on MY leather couch (when it comes). In fact I've told oDug he isn't even alllowed to fart on it!!!!!!!!!! (is it okay to say that on a family friendly forum>?????) |
| I find it less work to clean it than to continually try keep a couple of hundred pounds of dog off the couch. I could do it while I'm home but I know they're all up there while we're gone. Like I said, they don't do any damage so that's the important part. |
| Jill, do you have trouble with their nails???? |
| Nope, not at all. We have a really high quality pebble grain leather so it can't really take a lot of abuse. Its durability is amazing. James has actually done more damage to the sofa than the dogs (from slumping for hours on end while on his laptop, he pushed some of the padding under the leather and caused it to shift forward). Now I make him change spots frequently. I told him if he does it again on any other part of the couch, only me and the dogs will be allowed up there. |
| HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Well, mine had BETTER be high quality leather (for what it cost). I could definately tell the differance between the leather on the $800.00 couch and the $2000 when I went to the store!!!!! |
| The first couch that I had was really cheap leather and wafer thin. As luck would have it, a friend housesat for me and his dog tore a HUGE hole in it. He insisted on paying for the couch but, the best part was, I hated that couch and was dying to replace it. That dog did me a huge favor. I put the money he gave me (he wouldn't take no for an answer) toward the couch we have now, which I was lucky enough to buy from James's mom when she sold import furniture. I was able to get it for $3,000 less than the ticketed price thanks to her discount and some other bonus she had earned. So, all in all, it worked out well. Essentially, cheap leather actually got me the better couch! |
| $3000 less? EEEEEEK, you are way out of my league. I thought I was doing pretty good with a 2K couch |
| I got lucky. I wouldn't have bought it without the discount! I was trying to find a picture of mine but apparently, they don't make that model anymore.
I found this, though, which tells you how serious this company takes quality. They show you how it's built and how they beat it up to ensure it's top notch. It also tells you the difference in leathers, how to properly clean different textures and stuff. Kind of interesting if you like furniture stuff. http://www.ewald-schillig.de/kontakt/co ... ssengl.pdf |
| Interesting site!! I printed out the "stain removal chart".
We sat through the disected sofa lecture for flexsteel and after seeing the "innards" I was sold. |
| I particularly love how they show you the different imperfections in the leather, it could be dung or scratches in the hide. There's a line in the texture on the back of the couch that I thought was odd. I mentioned it to James's mom and a couple of her colleagues one time that we stopped by to see her at work and all three of them at once said "barbed wire" without even missing a beat. I never really thought about it but it made perfect sense. |
| I did look at that.............. HORN damage whoda thought!!!
I book marked the site, when mine comes in I'll have to see if I can "identify" the markings. |
| My dad was a manufacturer of leather outerwear.
I had a lot of leather jackets while I was growing up.
Every once in a while I see one of his coats on eBay. What is hilarious is about 10 years ago I walked into a retail consignment place and saw a new-but-horribly-faded-and-dry coat of his for sale. It must have been in a store window somewhere for 10 years, since the factory was closed in 1985. |
Tasker's Mom wrote: I did look at that.............. HORN damage whoda thought!!! I book marked the site, when mine comes in I'll have to see if I can "identify" the markings. I hope there isn't too much dung.  Ron wrote: My dad was a manufacturer of leather outerwear.
I had a lot of leather jackets while I was growing up. Were you one of the lucky few with a leather Member's Only jacket? |
| Didja have a biker dude leather jacket?? |
| BTW, while it is true that there are all sorts of natural and one-of-a-kind imperfections in animal skins, there's no law that says a manufacturer who is concerned with quality has to actually use a piece of leather that has a large and/or obvious imperfection.
A good leather cutter matches the skins (it takes more than one to make a couch or a jacket) looks over the skins and places imperfections in areas that are least conspicuous, or avoids them all together. The leather cutter has to keep lots of things in mind; dye lots, grain direction, layout to reduce cutting waste imperfection avoidance, etc. It is an incredible art, like a puzzle. |
ButtersStotch wrote: Were you one of the lucky few with a leather Member's Only jacket? Absolutely!
Not. But that was a very popular style of my dad's. I was more into the rugged leathers, the cowboy look, although I did have a 3/4 length trenchcoat in a heavy black steerhide. My brother had lots of high falutin smooth leathers like glazed aniline vests and leather shirt jackets and brushed back hair and/or an afro. Think Saturday Night Fever. Shearling was wonderful.... |
Tasker's Mom wrote: Didja have a biker dude leather jacket?? My fave jacket as a youngster was a Captain America coat. It was Red, White and Blue with white stars and fringe....
It was exactly like this, only instead of a large white star in front (where the buttons and pockets were) the white stars were across the blue yoke in the front and across the back yoke. I LOVED that jacket, and was very sad when I outgrew it. I made it into a vest, and when I outgrew that, I don't know what happened.  |
| Too bad the factory closed down. You just missed getting in on an eight ball jacket. |
| By then the imports (and the unions) had killed the domestic leather industry. Mostly the imports, the unions just hastened things a little bit. |
| Are you telling me they imported the eight ball jackets from elsewhere? |
| Doug's FAVORITE jacket is a Leather Ovation Guitar jacket, limited edition retailed at $500, he boubht it at a garage sale for 10.00!! |
| I hate to bring it back to the orginal topic, but:
Never. Bailey is not allowed on any furniture. He doesn't seem the least bit inclined to try it. |
| My favourite leather jacket is my bikie one, a FOX hot pink and white one.
Use it on my Yamaha Off road motorcycle up at the farm to go off trail in the mountains. The bike is hot pink and white too, so you can't miss me in the bush. lol There still not allowed on the couches, ha ha ha love spreading out and having the couch to myself |
Bailey's Mom wrote: I hate to bring it back to the orginal topic, but:
Never. Bailey is not allowed on any furniture. He doesn't seem the least bit inclined to try it.
Sorry, I guess we did kinda digress......................... |
| Yeah right.........The couch and large club chairs are the dogs'. To protech them I put a blanket or two over the cushions and back then a sheet over that. I find flannel stays on the best but the color and print selection are limited. To help the large dogs fit on the couch, I took off the back cushions. What a surprise when I sit down and fall back expecting a cushion there. If company is coming I whip everything off and stash in laundry room.
We used to NEVER let the dogs on the furniture, in fact I still have our original 1970 couch in the guest bedroom, but it's Jack's bed and he's not been kind to it. susan |
Bailey's Mom wrote: I hate to bring it back to the orginal topic, but:
Never. Bailey is not allowed on any furniture. He doesn't seem the least bit inclined to try it. Wait, there was another topic? |
Here's miss Abby, relaxing on our couch...I'm a big fan of attractive couch throws, and this one is my favorite, a polar-fleece quilt made by a friend of mine. It, and a similar one she did with a bear and salmon design, have stood up to aprox. 8 years worth of continuous use!
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| That is one COMFY looking sheepie.
Val posted a link to a woman that makes throws, they ARE BEAUTIFUL (faux fur). I would LOVE one but not sure its in the budget at the moment. Although, it's a small price to pay to save the couch!!! |
| Abby looks too cute!!! Yeah, I'd feel guilty moving her.
I've told Yuki to get off a few times today. I can tell she's confused. I usually get on her case for not settling down... now I'm telling her laying down next to mommy is now bad. |
| Mrs. J;
LOVE your mini sheepie |
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She gets ignored a lot since Yuki came along esp. in the grooming dept, so... I've been trying to change that recently. |
| PetEdge has nail covers for this problem. They are called Soft Claws, but just do a search at their site for nail covers. They come in fashionable colors.........and also come for cats!
susan [/url] |
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