Dogs on Hard Wood Floors

Dogs on Hard Floors

How to Protect and Clean the Floors?

Question Comment 1: I am moving to a place with all hard wood floors. In case of accidents, how do I clean them? Anything special? Also, because tomorrow is the move, I wont be on the computer for at least a week. I will come back to read all the responses though.

Cover the Floors

Comment 2: If you can afford to throw down several rugs that would help protect your floors, both from accidents and the nails. (paws) I wish I'd done that in the first place. But Murphy's Oil Soap works great for cleaning wood floors and I recommend it.

Dog Proof

Comment 3: Since I joined this list there have been various inquiries about “dog-proof” flooring. Of course out ceramic tile has held up unscathed and I suspect it will remain that way. However, our tile only covers about 1/3 of our floor and I have been curious about what to do with the carpet for some time. I have found the ECONOMICAL answer. Tiling the rest of our home is not a financial option right now but I decided the carpet has to go. 2 weekends ago I pulled out the carpet in our den (our most-trafficked area) and stained the concrete beneath. The stain is available from Lowe’s or Home Depot and is VERY cheap considering the alternatives. We paid about $25.00/gal and it took 3 gallons to get the effect we wanted from a 15x25 room. The process is simple aside from stopping foot traffic for 24 hrs. Simply clean the concrete, etch the floor with the etching cleaner they sell and spray the stain on with a pestiside-type pump sprayer. We used fans in the room to speed things up and did a 2nd coat in 3 hrs to get the color we wanted. The stains come in a variety of colors. Since it’s not paint but stain I see no way the boys can tear it up. Since we applied it we have had 3 visitors come over with their retriever, lab, and well-behaved-but-hyper pit bull and have had 3 separate maniacal 45 minute Hollywood chase scenes through the room. The floor shows NO distress at all from the abuse it has received. I was concerned about the color-rendering of the product but when one uses the semi-transparent colors they react chemically with the lime and other things in the concrete and the intensity of the colors changes in areas yielding a beautiful result. All 3 friends who visited are doing this to their homes as a result and I will finish the rest of the downstairs with it. As an added bonus, the concrete is nice and cool on the dogs- a Florida plus.