Hardwood floors and Dogs??

[DrJ]

My wife would like to put hardwood floors in the entryway and kitchen.Whenever someone comes to the door my lab runs to the door.We are worried the floor will get scratched and look bad. Anyone have experience with dogs and /or types of wood flooring. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks DrJ.

[Ole1855]

I have hardwood flooring in my kitchen and I also have a lab, you are correct, the dog scratches the heck out of my floor.

Ole

[Mark Christianson]

Wilsonart Laminate.

We have 2 Labs, and not a scratch.

[Guest]

True hardwood floors and no dog scratches,trim the dog nails,and keep them short.Dog can run across the floor without any noise,just a little hard for her to stop.

[PerchJerker]

We have hardwood floors. I've been wishing we would have done ceramic tile ever since I moved in.

[irvingdog]

It's kind of fun....watching the dogs run across the floor with freshly clipped nails......slip....slide.......

heh

[leechlake]

I own a hardwood lumber company and we built a new house three years ago. We have two bigger dogs and we put in tile. Like you said the dogs run when the door bell rings and it gets scratched, mostly the finish. Last week we had hickory floors put in some rooms that aren't in the "main" areas of our main floors so the dogs dont get in their too much. If you put in hardwood floors put in a solid product that can be refinished/resanded. If you put in a laminate floor and need to refinish you can maybe do it once and that is questionable. Maybe the Wilsonart mentioned above has some type of process that withstands the nail gouges, I'm not disounting that firsthand knowledge, but in general the laminates can't be repaired too easily or repeatedly.

[poutpro]

I lay flooring in the summer, and laminate flooring won't scratch from a dog. It takes a lot to put a (Contact US Regarding This Word) in that stuff. It also look great in my opinion. Makes the room look double the size.

[mdeiley]

All hardwood floors will scratch. Usually this is surface scratching just in the finish. Highly unlikely that the actual wood gets scratched. You will need to screen and recoat hardwood maybe once every 2 to 5 years depending upon traffic. The beauty is it can be restored forever. Old roller skating rinks and bowling alleys have hardwood and they have proven themselves over time. Laminate floors will stand up to scratching far better then wood will, but they are not wood. Allthough there are some good replicas available. If looking for wood be sure to consider a charactor type grade which will hide scratches and also natural finish instead of staining. Just my .02.

[setterguy]

I have two dogs in the house, and just recently put in some laminate flooring (pergo style) and have had no problems with scratching, nicking in the floors. The stuff was recomended to me by someone with two large Rottwielers, she has had it for years with no problem. She said she did a lot of research as to which stuff would hold up against the dogs nails the best. You can buy it at Home Depot, its called Trafficmaster laminate flooring. Easy to install and looks very nice.

[Tripleplay]

My wife is starting to lean on me to switch the kitchen and front entryway to hardwood so I'm interested in this one as well. My GSP likes to race to the front door on the tile and every now and then hits the brakes while on the front rug and crashes into the front door already!

Back when we were building this house and looking at lots of others for ideas we came across a model home and got to talking to the builder. He actually was going to live in the model with almost all hardwood floors and had two labs. What he had done was actually covered the hardwood with the same type of product that they use on the basketball courts like in Boston. The floor looked great and he swore he had done this before and his dogs couldn't scratch them if they tried. I have no idea what the product was, but if we end up going this way I'm going to be trying to find it.

[island guy]

I agree with whoever said any hardwood floor will scratch. I have two labs. One is older and mellow and doesn't scratch the floor. The other is 3 and full of energy and runs, jumps and slides everywhere she goes. She's scratched every kind of flooring possible including a basketball court. (don't ask me how she got in the gym. Don't want to incriminate myself)

[dkhntr]

Alot of people would pay for the free distressing you would get. My friend's mom just had her floors re-done and the company was telling her about one of their jobs. They just put in a brand new floor and had a horse walk all over the floor to get it distressed.

I have Maple floors in my 50+ yo house. The floors look fine. They do look a litle worn but shine them up and they still look beautiful.

[Fishook]

I just finished putting a Pergo floor in our TV room. We replaced carpeting and we could not believe how much bigger the room appears now. Glad to hear the new flooring should hold up well to our yellow lab.

[hobbydog]

I have oak floors and yup they scratch. The dogs scratch them and the kids scratch them and even my wife is guilty but we choose to live in our house and dogs and kids are a big part of our life so we just accept it....maybe when the kids are gone we will redo them. The floor guy says he can make them look like new any time we want $$$$