Flooring - wood vs. carpet

[HeidiW]

I am for the hard wood too, or fake hard wood the kind that does not scratch, and area rugs, that is what we have too. My Bo slides more than Bella but he has huge feet pads so that maybe why. Much easier to clean!

[Betty]

We have laminate (heavy duty commercial grade) and tile and I couldn't be happier. So far the laminate has held up to the dogs and *almost* to the husband!

After seeing how much dust, hair, ect collects on the laminate i don't think I will ever go back to carpeting. Even with my Dyson I was not getting that much up.

[Samba]

I pulled all the carpet out. There was hardwood underneath. It wasn't in pristine shape but that was okay as a herd of dogs is running over it. You couldn't get me to put carpet in again!

[Fee]

We have replaced our wood floor with laminate flooring downstairs. Unfortunately the laminate is far more slippery than the wood floor for the dogs. We have some washable area rugs. If I could do it all over again (and have the money) I would choose a bamboo floor and an area with a high quality vinyl.
One of our dogs is partly incontinent now and the laminate doesn't take the accidents as well. The wood floor was much better with that and vinyl would be best.
In the kitchen we had a cheaper laminate and living room expensive laminate. The kitchen laminate has a dent in it already (after 1 1/2 year) from a thrown over chair (dogs) and one of the joints is broken a bit (where the front loading washing machine bounces up and down a bit).
The more expensive laminate in the dining room (light colour) has some spots of the dog's drool stained into it if you look very, very closely. Dogs are raw fed and healthy so this was very weird. this is probably more than you wanted to know
Good luck!

[onyx'girl]

Bamboo is renewable, and the cost wouldn't be much higher than a good quality laminate. Just don't go with cherry, that shows everything!

[RunSarahRun]

In my experience, wood floors differ in how slippery they are. We have factory finished wood floors and they are too way slippery for a senior dog to walk on and for the young one to play fetch. Friends have wood floors that were treated with water based finishes and keep the slightly grained wood surface, giving more traction.
I find finishes important not only when it comes to traction, but also whether they evaporate any toxic substances. The dogs noses are much closer to the floor than ours. So I would prefer the water based finishes on those grounds, too.
I love the tile in our kitchen but find it cold in the cold New England winters to stand on. Need to wear warm slippers on tile, then it's ok.

Hope you'll find a solution that works for all members of the family/pack.

Sarah

[TxRider]

Originally Posted by shepherdlady

We have 2 GSD's that live in the house. Our carpet is old and needs to be removed. I would love to have hard wood installed, but DH said "NO".
They dogs will have problems with sliding on the floor.

What are your experiences - preferences? Your opinions are very much appreciated.

Maggie

My entire house is ceramic tile floors.

I have area rugs where i need them.

Yes the dogs slide around if they run or get rambunctious around the house, or if I play fetch with the tennis ball inside, but they don't seem to care in the slightest.

It does tend to slow them down as they have learned exactly how fast they can move around without sliding into a wall.

They like laying on the cool tile to cool off as well.

The tile makes cleanup after an accident a breeze and even makes shedding easy to clean up, especially with leather furniture as well.

Some dogs are very uncomfortable on wood or tile floors though, you'd probably want to check them out on some wood or tile first.

Maybe Cork flooring would be good, less slick, and it's quite a green choice as it is so renewable from what I understand

You would be hard pressed to pay me enough money to have these two girls and carpet in my house.

[LDB158]

I love my hardwood floors! I've had friends who have had dogs live inside and their houses stink. It may just because they don't clean the carpet like they should, but I haven't had any problems with "house stinch" with my hardwood floors.

[LDB158]

And both of my dogs do great walking on the flooring except when Speedy starts getting rambunctious (Sp?) and starts sliding everywhere when he plays with his toys. He doesn't seem to mind though. I have multiple dog beds in my house for them to lay on, but they both seem to prefer laying on the hardwood floors to sleep.

[Lilie]

I have carpet through out the house - but my living room is 1/2 carpet & 1/2 concrete. We are still rebuilding from Hurricane Ike. My dogs are MESSY drinkers. I keep their water dishes on the concrete.