Flooring 101:How To Take Care Of Your Floors When You Have Pets
You love your pets-- your dogs are friends to you in even your bleakest moments, your cats are partners to you in your home. Your parrots can sit real well and are colorful. Sometimes they eat food from your hand. In any case, your pets are amazing, but pets and hardwood floors do not always the best of friends make. Sure-- you, a very smart human-- knows your floors are a fine mahogany hardwood with an incredible finish, but your dog just wants to run through it, its nails chipping everything! Is there no way to keep your pets and your floors living side by side in peace!
Urine and sharp claws are two things from your pet which can cause your floor to be imperfect. A urine stain can be unexpected and often not found, meaning it has a chance to soak through the wood. Likewise, claws, if not taken care of can leave marks and indentations within the wood making a resanding necessary over a period of time.
It’s considered amoral by the Humane Society to declaw a cat, so that must be avoided, however you can feel free to clip your puppy’s or dog’s nails when they get too long to make sure they don’t chip into the hardwood. Clipping a puppy’s nails also, unlike clipping a cat’s nails, keeps his toes from separating too far and keeps his ankles from being hurt because of it. PedMd recommends you clip your dog’s nails once a week, while Purina recommends walking your dog on pavement so the nails naturally grow shorter themselves.
So what to do if your pet’s damage to your floor is consistent and deep? The first is apply more coats of finish to keep your floors safer and to make sure the scratches have a hard time going through to the wood itself. Also-- lay down rugs in the areas which the pets frequent the most. In many cases it may be unfortunate to cover up the beautiful hardwood floors, but essential nevertheless.
As for urine-- of course you must housetrain your pets as quickly as possible to avoid these kinds of mistakes. Before they’re properly trained-- or if you have to leave your dog alone for the day-- leaving a special pad for peeing for it to use is a good idea. Pet urine can be very corrosive to the floors and pets can use the same spot several times before they’re properly house trained. Sanding may be your only option after a while so your best cases are for the most part preventative or speedy. If you clean up pet urine immediately the damage done to your floor will be minimal.
With these precautions-- pets and floors do not have to be a problem at all.