What is the best flooring for your dogs?
The floor is more than just the floor. It’s a place where we spend a lot of time, and it has to be comfortable for all family members – including our furry friends! When choosing flooring options, there are many factors to consider: ease of cleaning, ability to hide nail marks and fur, and, equally as important, comfortability on paws.
The surface under our feet can absolutely make or break your pet’s quality of life- making it critical to find the right choice for them and the rest of your family. Luckily, we know some of the best around and are here to make your job more straightforward than ever. So keep reading to find out what flooring you should choose to keep you and your beloved Fido happy and comfortable for years to come.
No matter what flooring you decide on, our QuietWalk flooring underlayment line of products will adequately protect your purchase. Our patented blend of recycled fibers ensures you get the best possible underlayment for your new flooring, all while investing in a sustainable future. QuietWalk was designed to help you get the most out of your new flooring with moisture protection, noise reduction, and compression resistance.
Carpet Flooring
Once upon a time, carpet was THE thing. Practically everyone in the 70s and 80s had it in their homes, or at the very least, longed for it to pad their own house’s rooms and halls. But we’re now in 2021, and our tastes have dramatically shifted from those of yesteryear. So does carpet still have a place in our homes? For those who have a furry, waggy-tailed friend, the answer is a pretty firm “yes,” just with a tentative asterisk tacked on at the end.
The main reason carpet’s good for our canine buddies lies in how plush it is. Unlike pretty much all your other flooring options, carpet is super relaxing and cozy. Your dog can easily walk on it, even if they have particularly sensitive paw pads, and laying on it remains a pretty comfortable experience for any pups not allowed on the furniture. However, you should be aware that carpet comes with plenty of tradeoffs – maybe not for your dog, but definitely for you.
Most notably, carpet allows all sorts of nasty stuff to cling to it. Pet hair, dander, mud, and any unfortunate puppy or older dog accidents will get trapped within the fibers, leading to stains, odor buildup, increased allergy symptoms, and possibly mildew. In other words, it’s not the most hygienic option. If you’re not particularly concerned about that or are happy to give it a deep clean once, in a while, carpet makes an excellent choice for the whole family.
To help with hygienics, we created a QuietWalk Carpet Pad with a moisture barrier. The moisture barrier will prevent accidents from soaking into the carpet pad and subfloor. That way, they do not make it farther than the carpet, allowing quicker and more effective cleaning.
Laminate Flooring
In the world of flooring, laminate is perhaps one of the most misunderstood. It has certainly gotten a bad rap, people mostly remembering the yellow, off-white, and retro colored laminate that their grandparents probably had running through the kitchen at some point. This flooring option has come a long way since those days, though, and more than deserves a second look. Pet parents should pay especially close attention because it has several pros that make it a pretty attractive option for anyone with a fur baby. At least, for you. Maybe not quite as much for Balto.
So, what are some of these purported benefits? Despite people’s preconceptions, one of the biggest is actually that laminate usually looks fantastic. Nowadays, it typically looks just like hardwood, in both color and “grain.” That instantly gives your home a bit of a style upgrade at a fraction of the price of real hardwood. That means less cash thrown around at the hardware or home store and more spent on getting your pawesome friend food, treats, and tons of toys they’ll likely destroy within the month. You know – the usual.
Laminate is a wise decision as far as function goes, too. It won’t typically last as long as actual hardwood, which does knock it a bit, but it still provides a significant amount of durability and resistance to damage. It’s more resistant to water (and other liquids), is less likely to scratch, and provides easier clean-up than most other floorings. All upsides, but they do come at a small cost to your dog’s comfort. Laminate tends to be very slippery and simply not that nice to lay on, except for maybe hot summer days.
A quick, simple way to improve the life of your laminate flooring is to add an underlayment like QuietWalk for floating floors. QuietWalk’s attached moisture barrier will prevent accidents from seeping into and soiling the subfloor. The compression resistance extends the life of your laminate flooring by providing support for the click-lock systems. Your home will become more relaxing as QuietWalk helps dampen noise from footsteps, dropped objects, and ambient noise.
Hardwood Flooring
Figuring out what floors best replace your current can be confusing, and dog people can have an even rougher go at it. After all, it’s hard. Your needs and wants for the surface under your feet are very different from what your cold-nosed companion is likely to appreciate. Unlike the good boy in your life, you have to worry about the practicalities of whatever it is you buy. Is it reasonably easy to clean? Is installation going to be a big pain? How much is it going to cost? Can it stand up to the pitter-patter of little (or large) paws day in and day out?
Those are all valid questions, but they do complicate your decision. You’ll need to give yourself plenty of time to explore your options, weigh your priorities, and examine what your best friend truly needs versus what would be a nice perk. Ultimately, it’s up to you. Just don’t forget that hardwood is still very much on the table, even with many different options out there. It’s a pretty decent one, too.
Much like with laminate, hardwood is a good one for the list if you need something that looks good, makes for a straightforward clean, and won’t trap any pet hair, dander, or allergens. All it takes is a quick mopping, and these floors will look good as new, even if your pup came back inside looking more like a swamp creature than a dog. However, as hardwood might prove a touch too hard under your fluffy shadow’s feet and is sometimes a little more prone to scratching, there are a few cons. It’s probably a good fit for those with small, relaxed dogs, but if your buddy’s an overactive behemoth, it might not be the right fit.
QuietWalk Plus is perfect for hardwood floors since you can use it in glue-down installations. QuietWalk Plus will provide all the same improvements to your flooring as regular QuietWalk. If hardwood floors are correctly installed and maintained, they are capable of lasting over 80 years! Their long life makes it essential that you use durable fiber underlayment instead of underlayments made from foam, as foam tends to flatten over time.
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You are about to install your new flooring. As you lay the first plank you realize that
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