Best floors for dogs.

lanyac

I have two large dogs, and they're pretty destructive to my white carpet. I'd like to install laminate because of the cost compared to real wood. However, we stayed at a friends house that had laminate floors this weekend, and it seems as if the dogs would scratch the heck out of those floors if we put them in. Is there stronger laminate? Can we put some sort of coating on it? 

Dr.Bean

We have Allure vinyl plank (Home Depot) in our kitchen and our dog skids across it all the time while playing fetch.  It still looks as good as the day we installed it.  The real wood we refinished in the front hallway, on the other hand, has become very scratched.   The Allure is also very easy to DIY.

MMP

My dogs scratched the heck out of laminate.  Now I have natural red oak hardwoods.  There are some scratches near the door, but you can't see them unless you look close.

Pamela05

It really depends on which laminate you get, what the finish on it is like, the way that your dog walks, how short you keep their nails, etc.  I'd try to abuse the samples at the store before you buy anything.  We had good luck with our laminate and large dogs other than the idiot previous homeowner had poured some sort of polish over the laminate (which wasn't made for laminate) that scratched up bad.  Once that coat was gone, the actual laminate worked pretty well. We then replaced with a distressed hickory engineered hardwood that also held up well.  My mom's expensive, softer hardwood (don't remember what it is, something exotic) can't handle normal women's dress shoes, much less a dog. 

The best floors for dogs though?  Tile.  That's what we have in our new house and while I hate them sometimes, for ease of cleaning they can't be beat.

Mrs Acorn Blue

We have "laminate" peel and stick tile in our kitchen (we are going to upgrade it when we redo the kitchen) and old hardwood throughout the rest that was already beat up and needing to be replaced when we moved in.  The HW and the laminate have worn equally well but I keep my dog's nails pretty short. 

juno

Our oak floors + poly also hold up really well. 

dr.girlfriend

We have real hardwood in most rooms, engineered hardwood in the t.v. room, and laminate in the kitchen.  The laminate in the kitchen has a fair amount of pattern, and I haven't noticed any scuffing in there.  It has come apart at the seams a little though around the sink -- maybe because of a leak or just a lot of splashing all the time. 

The engineered hardwood has a fair amount of pattern as well, and looks like new so far (we put it in two summers ago).  The real hardwood has held up the worst...it's very scuffed and stained dark in a few places where the older dog had an accident on the rug and we didn't realize right away (some weird reaction between the carpet, urine and hardwood -- ick!).  It would probably be tons better if we refinished it, but to be honest we're waiting until the remaining (15-year-old) dog passes away in case she has continence problems at the end as well.  :-/

This is the engineered hardwood we have.  It's discontinued now, but it was the Schon Quick-Click in Whistler Maple from Lumber Liquidators.  We are going to extend it into the kitchen...I have five giant boxes in my t.v. room right now!  Anything like that with a good amount of pattern would be a good bet, I expect.

LexiMS

We have light oak with a satin poly and it holds up really well with two dogs.

spalko

The best flooring for the dog is actually carpeting. As the dog ages, it will eventually become harder and harder from him to get up and being on any sort of surface that doesn't provide a lot of traction will be hard on the dog. At the clinic I work at, we have tile in the lobby and laminate in the rest of the building and it can be so hard on dogs with bad hips and joints in general. Obviously, in the veterinary profession it is not practical to have carpet (due to diseases and cleaning purposes) but the dogs tend to have better traction on the tile than they do the laminate.