Hardwood floors and pets
 - to a location where we can't seem to find a house that isn't covered top to bottom in hardwood floors. Not that I'm complaining... they are beautiful. <3
But I've heard that hardwoods... +dogs and cats don't mix well.  I'm not getting rid of my pets - period... but...
Does anyone on this forum have hardwood floors and sheepdogs (and cats too?). I was just wondering if anyone had a few recomendations for a few of my concerns. I have a large metal crate I keep Momo in when we sleep at night. I obviously I can't just dump the thing on the floor - because if she wiggles around it will scrape the floor.  I don't want to get an expensive floral rug to put underneith it... are there any alternatives to put underneith the crate?
It would help with my ferret's cage too - as their cage is made of the same material. They also like to knock pieces of their food out sometimes.  It would also be nice to have something underneith the catboxes as well - as their litter and the box getting jostled might be a problem.
If we do get a home with a hardwood floor - is it enough to trim her nails and put rugs around the house? Will the floor get ruined anyway? We're hoping that the rugs will be enough - but if we see any major wear and tear from the cats we want to get nail caps for them. Does any one have cats and hardwood floors without putting nail caps on them? Edit: We're not looking at claw removal as an option. |
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| We have hardwood floors throughout. Ours are oak, and have many, many layers of poly on them. We haven't had any problems with scratching them. We just keep Oliver's nails trimmed, and have a few rugs in the house. After having a puppy in a house with hardwoods, I will never buy another house with carpet. Potty training is so much easier, keeping the house clean is so much easier, and Oliver loves how cold the floors stay.
Like I said, we haven't had any problems with ours, but we do have a very "hard" wood. Something like bamboo (actually a grass) I don't think would be good, even some of the laminate flooring can be pretty soft. Good luck on moving, fun but frustrating! |
| I have pergo, similar to hardwood. I have to put throw rugs all over because Tasker slips TERRIBLY on the wood. |
| I had parquet flooring in my old house. My Boxers scratched them up so badly....just from running up and down the hallway.
The looked horrible a month after I had it put in. To see if the wood is hard or soft try to press you finger nail into the wood. If it makes an impression you will have problems. The house I live in now had a parquet floor in the dining room, but whatever wood it is is hard and had never scratched. So it depends on the wood. I have laminate flooring here in Hayley's bedroom. It's great because it does not scratch.....but boy is it loud.  |
| Oh - thanks for mentioning that JC! I didn't even think of the wood type! *bonks herself on the head* I'll be sure to ask what wood type is in each house.
I will keep in mind that oak is good and bamboo might be bad news. Anyone else have any wood suggestions? For potty training pups - you did crate training right? I imagine it must be wonderful for cleanup! How damaging is it for a puppy who might run off for a sec and goes potty and you don't catch it right away? TM - Oh I know - that is so funny. (Does laughing make me a bad person?) We had a tiny bit of hard wood in an old house where used to live at. Our cats wouldn't go near it except to have a cool place to sit. They used to do a slip and slide without the rug being there. |
| we have hardwoods throughout. regarding the crate, what i would do is go to home depot and buy the thick pads...they come in packages of different sizes that sticks on one side. we put them on all the corners of our furniture which makes it easier to move when dusting and vacuuming.
I wouldnt buy the plastic ones, they tend to leave skid marks when you move the furniture but the thick felt ones are great! Panda has scratched our oak floor up some, but not too bad...what I find annoying is that the darker the stain color, the more you see dust, furballs and little wet sheepie foot prints.....but i still wouldnt trade our floors in for anything! |
I want to get wood flooring too, I HATE carpeting. I would put a nice center rug in the living room. Our proublem is cinde she can't walk or get up on anything but rugs. Our pup room,kitchen and 2 baths are all tile and she falls all the time  I still don't like it but have at least 10 rubber backed throws to help her.
BUT I still want wood floors sometime |
We have wood laminate floors, which dont scratch, but are frighteningly slippery for the dogs So we have LOTS of rugs. 
For under your crate, you could just get some of the no-slip padding that can be bought for putting under throw rugs....its also sold for lining cupboards. Its cheap, and even comes in some fairly nice colors.  |
| yeah, that is true, the hardwood are slippery. just make sure you keep your sheepies hair trimmed on his/her feet, that helps alot. oh, and NO wax! |
| We have wood floors throughout the house also. The one with the "high gloss" finish does show some scratches slightly. But they seem to come out when I clean the floors so they're only superficial. the other floors are fine.
We had some accidents while housebreaking. Used the same stuff as with any other floor to clean it. I forget the name but will check when I get home. Did no damage to the floors. However, urine must be wiped up and sprayed immediately or it will leave a mark. Murphy's oil soap works well. For the crate, I put a towel and/or thin blanket between the tray and the crate bottom and then put crate on an area rug so no marks on the floor. If area rug moves around, they sell this velco stuff at Home Depot to keep rugs from shifting. |
| If you are buying a house with wood floors I would suggest real wood rather than laminate. Laminate is much more slippery than real wood and it still will scratch unless its the very expensive laminate. With real wood you can have it sanded and re-stained if it gets really scratched....laminate you cannot.
At my other house we had both hardwood and laminate. The noise of the dogs nails on the laminate were annoying....the hardwood wasnt as noisy. Oak is one of the hardest wood floors......cherry is also hard.... birch is very soft, it will scratch very very easily. Good luck with your home search...... |
| The homes under construction in our area are putting in solid wood floors with what I call a distressed look. Just enough gouges and pits that I don't think the dogs would make a visible impact. It sounds ugly, but I think they are attractive. It doesn't jump out at you, you have to really look at them. |
| If you put in carpeting do NOT use berber. One claw into the pile and it will pull the whole length of the carpet... |
| I'm in the process now of putting 3/4" oak throughout the house. The dogs love it because it's cool. (But hate the sound of the compressor and nailer so they stay outside while I'm working.) The don't rough house inside so I havn't had any problems with scratches from sliding. I have a couple of throw rugs and If I give them a marrow bone they must keep it on the rug. All their toys are soft.
I'm told water is no good for hardwood floors; if left standing it can stain and if a lot of gets through the cracks the floors can warp or buckle. So if they come in wet from the rain I towell them down good but don't worry about any residual dampness on them. Maggie threw up one night and I didn't catch it until the next morning - by then it was pretty well dried up. I washed the area with damp soapy rags and it cleaned up with no staining. Anyway, a few scratches here and there add character to the floor. |
| Thanky for all the responses - this really helps! I've been out of town looking at houses so I couldn't respond sooner. Funny that some of you mention wood flooring with scars. I've seen one of those scuffed up floors with "character" I think they look great. XP I guess a good word for it would be "loved" or something to that effect.
If I carpet I will avoid berber. That doesn't sound good at all. =( Depending on which house we get - there is one that's a giant fixer-upper. We might put stone flooring in that one. My brother knows how to put it in so we're talking about doing it together. That's only if we go to that house though. |
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