Polished Floors Verses Carpet/tiles Best For Dogs

[Lindainfa]

We have solid hardwood timber floors. The type of wood is Greybox - it has one of the hardest janka ratings. For example, Tasmanian Oak is a very soft wood, easily scratches, yet it is the most common used.

We have no scratches or heel marks or anything. Best flooring! OH it might also make a difference what polish you have. If you have a gloss - scratches will show more. I have a semi gloss, so its shiny/matte. Not super glossy.

Goodluck with your choice!

[Parkeyre]

We have carpet and lino, and then tiles in the bathroom and laundry.. the tiles are not scratched, the lino has no damage either but the carpet in the loungeroom in paticular is pathetic now. :D

[Vehs]

:D I have a preference for carpet 1) because when a dog drops hair at least it is hidden in the carpet and doesn't end up tumble weeding 2)I spend a lot of time on the floor

I've got some sythetic carpet stuff atm and it hurts my knees with it's strange fibers, but I can't afford to replace it yet

I vacuum twice a week with a GSD, if I had tiles/slate like I did previously I would have to vacuum daily and he'd probably be outside a lot more.

[ophnbark]

We've got timber floors and they were polished with the matt, hypo-allergenic finish and it's great. Most scratches are from us moving furniture!!! Have had slate (also good) and have previously had carpet but never again with our lot, too hard to keep getting the hair up!!!

[MavericksMission]

We had floorboards in our last house and they copped a beating from the dogs over time, scratches and they were awfully slippery..

In out new house we have tiles in most areas, just carpet in the bedrooms and in the small lounge room!

I like the tiles, not so slippery, easy to clean.. although they are white and with dark hair dogs & cats... there is alot of cleaning! .. oh well that comes with owning furry friends!

[tianakaesha]

My aunt has Vinyl - fake timber floor boards. They are in pieces that slot together. They are fantastic! I'd go that way if that was a choice!

[cointreau]

I like carpet I vacuum twice a week, own a carpet shampooer and shmpooed my lounge room yesterday and the carpet is like new. I have found tiles and lino very slippery when wet and I don't fancy a broken leg on myself, dog or cat. I put new carpet in my house when I bought it 2 and half years ago and would do the same thing again my lounge room carpet looks like new at the moment.

[Lady Flying Furball]

I have floorboards and had them polished and a gloss coat put on that I was told was hard wearing. I have a small 3.5 kg dog.

In retrospect I would of used some rugs to protect the most used areas: hallway and lounge room, plus, more importantly, I would never have started playing fetch inside ;) All the very fine scratches are from Tonka scrambling to get the toy. I think otherwise it would have been fine.

[Pawfect]

My aunt has Vinyl - fake timber floor boards. They are in pieces that slot together. They are fantastic! I'd go that way if that was a choice!

I have these too - they're great. Come as planks (like wood), and just stick together so you can easily do the flooring yourself. Mine were from Harvey Norman:

http://www.harveynormanflooring.com.au/vin...les/allure.html

plus the ones I bought are textured (like grains of wood) so aren't slippery.

Edited April 21, 2010 by Pawfect

[AmandaJ]

I know this is about timber floorboards, but is there anyone with timber laminate floors that can give a review? I've always heard that they're more durable than hardwood/softwood so am interested in how they fare with dogs.

Been thinking of tearing up the carpet eventually and going a timber laminate.

We have both pine (majority of house) and timber laminate (extension) in our place. The laminate does not scratch or dent but the pine is badly damaged, although from furniture more than dogs. If I had the choice I'd go laminate. As Erny said you need to keep the dogs at a walking pace inside which does get difficult when the door bell rings. We have had the odd pile up at the end of the hall, but thankfully no damage. The most common one is a quick stop in the front end but the back end doesn't stop as quickly and the back feet get to say "hi" to the nose.

The big plus for us is the coat pick up. With long coats we get "tumble weeds" of coat rolling around so vacuuming on hard floors is easier.

[ellz]

Slippery floors can be detrimental to skeletal and muscular health of your dogs too so that might be something to take into account.

[pie]

We have Timber floors in our house, Merbau ones, and although the dogs haven't actually scratched the timber, the varnish coat is covered in millions of scratches! You can really see it in the light. I clip their nails every week but they are active and excitable (read: mental) and when playing etc run on the floor and trash it, we're hoping the scratches will polish out when we well, they are quite superficial. If not we'll have to sand and recoat.

Next house is definitely having tiles that are not too slippery! As much as I hate the coldness of tiles, they are a lot more hard wearing.