Pets make a great addition to any home. They boost serotonin, provide quality company, and enhance family dynamics. However, pets also cause a lot of wear and tear to your floors. Despite their numerous, loveable qualities, they do a number on your house, from claw scratches to piles of shedding fur. To enjoy the best of your adorable animal companion and your beautiful USA-made engineered hardwood flooring, here are some tips for protecting engineered floors from pets.
Trim or Cap Sharp Nails
Claws provide plenty of uses to animals. They help them grip, hunt, climb, and protect themselves. Those attributes might help your pet in the wild, but they cause some damage at home. Maintaining the length and sharpness of your pet’s claws minimizes the likeliness of paw markings scratching up your wood floors. Placing pet nail caps over the claws also prevents scratchings, adding a protective covering over the nails while still providing grip. Plus, nail caps come in fun colors, making your pets look like they came straight from a mani and pedi session.
Use Foodbowl Placemats
Placemats under your pets’ food and water bowl add a protective layer between the bowls and your floors. They absorb any spilled liquids, capture and contain loose food escapees, and keep the bowls in place. Whether your pet dines with class, splashes while they sip, or flings kibble out of the bowl, using a placemat saves your floor from muck and water damage. Placing a mat under litterboxes also reduces the risks of missed, spilled, or carried bathroom delicacies from the pet privy.
Finish or Refinish Floors
The more barriers between the actual wood of your floor planks and external factors, the less wear it endures and the longer it lasts. Wood finishes provide an extra surface coating. They come in various forms, spanning from wax seals to tinted varnishes. Coating a layer of water and scratch-resistant sealant maintains your floor in its prime condition, even with a clawed, energetic, and accident-prone pet running around.
Minimize Bathroom Accidents
Bathroom accidents happen—they’re part of nature and are often called an accident for a reason. Training your pet early on and being attentive to your pet’s needs minimizes accidents within the home and on your wood floors. Installing doggy doors and placing puppy pads and litter boxes in accessible locations also further help reduce bathroom mishaps. Another great way to ensure minimal toilet accidents is to set a daily bathroom routine. Scheduled bathroom breaks throughout the day ensure your pet’s bowels and bladder remain empty. Plus, it drills down associations of using the bathroom at set times and, most importantly, at specific locations.
Although engineered wood possesses more durable, resistant, and long-lasting properties than other floors, they are still susceptible to certain influences. Your floors will remain in top shape with the right care and protective measures. Other tips for protecting engineered floors from pets to keep in mind include routine cleaning and floor maintenance, drying and cleaning paws and fur before re-entering indoors, adding rugs in high foot traffic areas, and investing in a comfortable pet bed that’ll keep your pet cozied up and off the floor.