Hardwood Floors and Dogs...Mutually Exclusive?

I'd go with a fake look Pergo or similar. No sense in spending your hard earned money only to see it get thrashed.

 

go w/ raw wood and seal it yourself . It's the only way to make a wood floor look good, imvho.

I think you'll be happy. Mines lasted 15 years (red oak), and it still looks good w/ dogs. semi-gloss hides stuff...or even high gloss. A little patina's not all bad.

btw...cool dogs.

 

As for scratches, it's the finish that's important. To scratch the wood the dogs must first get through the finish. Mirage hardwood is great, very hard finish I think an industry best, very nice colours and I think "Foxwood" is the exact same in terms of wood, process and longevity but may come in a few less colours but will also be less expensive maybe by a buck per square foot, I'm after forgetting but it's alot. {They sell Mirage to customers and Foxwood to their contractors and pass it off as Mirage... because it is, just cheaper}

Darker finishes/ stains will show scratches just like black paint on a car. A natural finish is the way to go.

Make sure you know how much moisture your house holds, certain wood can expand A LOT or shrink A LOT, engineered hardwood flooring doesn't move, just real hardwood.

 

Great looking dogs. I'm jealous.

 

We have engineered Maple (5 ply 1/2") and a very active Sheltie. It has been about 6 years that she has been scratching at the floors so far. You can see the scratches on the finish layer, but none of them have gotten into the wood. That said, I would recommend a 3/4" product and seal it yourself. Eventually we will need to refinish the wood, and with such a thin wear layer the floor will probably need to be replaced at that time.
Our dog only weighs around 22 lb, so bigger dogs will likely wear the floor down faster (especially three of them!).
BT

 

+1. I would agree two reasons. First, I have solid hardwood floors in my home that we refinished two years ago, and there's 4 Yorkshire terriers in there all day that are running all over the place. There's small microswirl-like scratches in the polyurethane top layer, nothing below that. Second, I used to do a lot of legal work for a local company that manufactured a pre-finished engineered product, and we got warranty claims all the time for excessive wear caused by dogs. There was a warranty exclusion, so we never paid them, but it was, I think, well known in the industry that pre-finished floors don't hold up as well to dogs as do the solid products that are finished in-house.

 

try kids practicing their tap dance routine on hardwood - way more destructive than dogs (at least medium sized dogs!). But it's just wood (manufactured hardwood), I think it adds personality.

We had a blind poodle when I was a teenager, and she could truck down a 40' hallway and turn between three walls and the fridge into a 2' gap 9x out of 10. Must of been from sound? I dunno - amazing to see, and didn't bother her at all. None of the dogs my parents have had were in any difficulty on hardwood - they're on #5 now I think, over 40+ yrs.

Hardwood's the best - easiest to clean and best looking of the different floorings out there imo.

 

Agree with the hardwood & proper finish. There are benefits to the hardwood as well, like being easier to pick up hair and to clean when the dogs come in dirty. If you keep their nails trimmed it will make a big difference as well. Not to get picky, but I can see in the one photo the rear nails are a little long.

 

We went back and forth on tile vs hardwood knowing we would be getting a dog. We went with tile thinking it would be more durable. The tile itself is durable, the grout is not. I so didn't see that coming. I need to regrout the corners where the dog grips in for traction while cutting the apex. Same at the bottom of the stairs where she stops her head-long freefall of death just before spinning sideways and smashing into the front door to stop.

We put runners down on the long sections. She likes to run at them, jump on the runner, stop and slide down the hall on top of the runner. Like a magic carpet ride.

 

62 250 GTO and Rickenbach -

Put down the keyboard and walk away. Both of you need to stop right now.

No further warnings.

 

My one dog is tiny and I have no problems with scratches but she keeps peeing on the wood and it's holding up okay so far. I have wood floors that were recently refinished in the last year. I would think you could put a sealer on to protect some against scratches. What I was told is that my floors maybe have one more sanding left in them, so I guess you can only sand and refinish them so many times.