Porcelain tile: Nothing beats it in terms of wear.

I love the look of wood floors, but I have several dogs, and I know I'd be sad when wood floors started to look worn.

Our 13 year old labrador retriever has done very little damage to the oak wooden flooring we have. There is very little evidence of dog damage to the vinyl flooring in the kitchen and bathroom. We have carpet on the stairs, and she really likes to paw and scratch the carpet on the landing when she goes into the ritual of taking a nap. So, the carpet suffers a bit. Dog clearly prefers carpet to walk on, especially on the stairs. She feels more secure going up and down- better traction, I guess.

I've had Bamboo down for about a year. One very long nailed 13 year old Golden Retriever lives with me. So far, not a scratch. This is the harder natural stuff, not the soft carbonized bamboo.

Three golden retrievers here, and except for the carpeted bedrooms, we have slate tiles. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Being owned by two Welsh Corgis, we have found them equally at home on tile floors, hardwood and carpet. If carpet is the case, you need a very good vac. On the other hand, my Corgis walk me frequently so their nails are always in check. Both of our Corgis are males and they don't do the carpet scratching. We had a female Corgi for 17 years and she always scratched the carpet before laying down. Seems to be a female dog thing in my experience.

We did the fingernail scratch test on laminate and solid wood flooring and the laminate won hands down. We went with pergo in the foyer and dining room because they are high traffic areas.

Try scratching any samples you get. I would have preferred tile, but didn't want to hurt resale by putting it in the dining room.

Pergo is a pita with dog drool, but other than that it seems pretty bullet proof. I just damp mop and got a large area rug. I have an insane boxer and laminate has held up very well.

Another reason we chose laminate is, we could replace the entire floor in the future if need be, for less than the price of labor to refinish a hardwood floor.

Tile is my number one choice. Carpet is last due to the hair and the dust and dirt. We have always owned large active dogs. Currently we are owned by a high energy Black Lab and an extremely active Rottie. Both have the run of the house and yard access 90% of the time.

I love my tiled areas but we do plan to replace our carpeted living room with wood. I love the lighter maple and birch floors but we have decided to stick with a grainier oak for it's "hiding" abilities. Also rememberthat the higher the gloss the more scratches will stand out.

I'd choose tile first, wood second and pergo type floors third. Pergo is pretty durable but once it sctches it must be replaced. You can keep a wood floor in decent shape far longer with proper maintainence.

We usually have 2-3 large breed dogs, Rottweilers, at any given time and I have never seen damage to our Oak Hardwood Floors. But I try to keep my dogs nails trimmed.

We are again installing 3/4" oak flooring throughout our first floor with large room-sized oriental carpets. In the kitchen we are installing porcelain tile, no upkeep except for a weekly mopping. But in our last house we had a slate entrance, lived there for 12 yrs, no visible damage that I ever saw and this floor was well used by our 3 dogs.

We have a black lab and a St. Bernard mix, each over 55#. We have white oak throughout the first floor and I've done damage moving furniture (piano) but have not noticed damage from the dogs. They do slide around quite a bit when they chase each other (or the cats). We are plannning a remodeling and will put white oak throughout the second floor. I'm looking forward to never having carpet again!

We had Pergo in the basement of our last home. The kids ruined it by dragging furniture around. You can get a crayon stick to hide the marks but they were noticible if you looked.

I have 4 dogs(35 lbs, 60 lbs, 90 lbs, and 98 lbs). We just got rid of all the carpet. Pet hair is a nightmare with carpets.

We went with tile and heat under them. We adore the new floors. After a year, we are totally sold on those heated tiles. I get tons of compliments on this tile in our den and we're going to put it in our kitchen remodel as well.

For the bedrooms, we went with a pergo handscraped maple laminate. I ordered samples and tried to gouge them with a screwdriver to test the hardness. The pergo won hands down on that test. It's been in my dad-in-law's room and our hallway for a year now and works wonderfully. We plan on putting it in the other non-tiled rooms now.

I would also highly recommend a doggy door.

>

Please, have your dog's nails trimmed. Your dog could be in pain and/or unable to walk normally.

John

QUOTE:

House with dogs -- In need of suggestions.

SUGGESTION:

Get rid of the dogs.

I recently put Adura oak look vinyl planks in a lake house. Choose it for easy care and dog resistance after scratch testing a lot of products. So far, we are very happy with it. Excellent appearence, cleans up well, no problems with water in the kitchen or bath, not as slippery as tile for the dogs. Ceramic tile would be a harder surface but you have to consider that it is noisier, hard on your feet and back, and a lot more difficult to repair or replace if needed. But I would also consider where you live and what is customary there and why.

The laminate engineered flooring is the way to go, the stuff is dirt cheap. I just did a rental property at less than 1 dollar per sq ft and it lasts a long time, real tough stuff. Whatever you use will eventually show some wear from active large dogs, why not use something easily replacable. I have Oak 3/4" hardwood in our home and the labradors go crazy sliding around and such and do scratch it pretty badly I am not looking forward to the cost of refinishing them. I spent huge dollars for these 3/4" hardwood floors and am now wishing I had used the laminate. I could tear the laminate out and replace it many times over for what this 3/4" stuff costs plus having the advantage of having a different looking floor every so often. Tile is just to commercial looking for us, we don't like the look but that would probably be the best choice, if cost was not a big consideration.

Bushrod, "Get rid of the dogs" NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!!!!

We have a very active 50-lb. shepherd mix and I have not seen any damage to our oak hardwood floors.

We have only hardwood and ceramic tile -- no carpet. Our two area rugs are faux sisal (polypropylene).

I would NEVER have carpet with even just one dog. It would get nasty fast, and you can never vacuum out all of the allergens and general gunk dogs leave behind.

Keep the nails trimmed and filed and you should niot have any problems.
I have had Labrador Retreivers (in various quantities up to 13) with no problem.

Trimming is not enough in many cases. Tghe edges kleft are very sharp. A quick pass with a dog size nail file knocks the edges off.

Well, my chihuahuas don't do much damage to anything, but my mother swears by tile... she's got several large breed dogs.

Tile seems too slippery for dogs, don't they fall during romps?

I used prefinished solid red oak flooring in my big-dog-intensive household. There's a tiny bit of damage in one area after 4 years (in a doorway where one dog really goes nuts barking), but the rest is still perfect. And I like that hardwood can be refinished, I'm planning to touch it up when we sell in ten or fifteen years.

I tried lamininate click-plank flooring in my bedroom, before selecting hardwood for the rest of the house. I hate it. Too slippery (one elderly dog fell and hurt her elbow), and when they walk their toenails make a loud hollow plasticky clicking sound. Yuck.

Not all tile is slippery: the porcelain in my kitchen isn't, even when wet. Look for something low gloss with a lot of surface texture.

And it would be hard to find a floor less slippery than cleft slate tile! Wears great, too.

I remember throwing oranges for our cocker spaniel when i was a kid in san diego through the kitchen, off a drop into the den. Ol' valentine would fly off that curb,catch the orange, and slide 10' into the den wall. Slippery floors can be great fun for dogs, but a little hairy for older ones.They are also cold so provide a pad to keep their joints from getting cold as this is painful for older dogs as well.We have carpet now but in a house we are building are going mostly laminate w/no carpet planned. Our dogs rule our lives and we wonder who we are building the house for.

I was told the reason females do the funky scratch dance before laying down is that by instinct,whether they have had pups or not, it's a thing they do when carrying young to pad the area where they are laying to make it more comfortable for them as well as the pups inside.In the wild its to remove any hard substances such as rocks,etc.

Hey mag77, finally saw that cream reunion concert on pbs. It was great to see them jammin' again!

"Tile seems too slippery for dogs, don't they fall during romps?"

Being I have Rottweilers, my dogs are very well trained and rarely run in the house and NEVER play with each other in the house. We have rolling hills on our property and our driveway is prone to black ice. I teach all my dogs the command "careful" for times when they must watch their footing and they then proceed to little baby steps and their toes spread to cover more surface area.