Will Dogs Scratch Laminate Flooring?

When you have a dog living with you in your house, you have to be extra careful about your flooring choices as dog claws can scratch and put unsightly scratch marks on your home floor and ruin its good looks. Compared to human beings, pets, especially dogs, are harder on a floor surface and more prone to scratching the floor.

  1. Choosing the Right Floor Surface for Your Dog

    • Although traditional hardwood is the most popular flooring choice among homeowners, homeowners with pets stay away from it as it gets easily ruined by pet urine and pet scratches. In this case, the best alternative is often laminate flooring mainly because of its hardness. Laminate flooring is highly durable, more scratch-resistant than traditional hardwood or vinyl floors and is the perfect choice for heavy traffic zones in your house.

    Laminate Flooring and Dogs

    • Laminate flooring is more difficult for your dog to scratch and ruin. High quality laminate flooring is supposedly resistant to dents and stains (even from dog urine). The thickness of laminate flooring ranges between six mm and 12 mm; if the material is thicker, the floor surface is tougher, more durable, harder and long-lasting. Laminate flooring is cheap and makes a lot of sense if you suspect that your dog will damage the floor surface with its claws, and if you plan to live in that house for only a few years.

    Laminate Flooring for Dogs

    • Although laminate flooring is hard and more resistant to scratches, it is very slippery and may cause your dog to slide and slip while walking or running about through the house. This, in turn, may lead to hip damage in your dog in the long run as your pet̵7;s hip will be forced to move in a strange manner. The highly glossy and smooth laminate floors can be especially dangerous for dogs or any kinds of pets. That is why laminate flooring with a textured finish or embossed finish is more dog friendly as it is less slippery. Moreover, even if your dog manages to scratch your floor, the dog scratch won̵7;t be so prominent on this type of flooring.

    Protecting Laminate Flooring from Dog Scratch

    • Big dogs with untrimmed claws can sometimes put scratch marks on laminate floors in spite of the floor's scratch resistance and urability. You can prevent this by regularly trimming your dog̵7;s claws. You can also place rugs, walk off mats, felt pads and area carpets throughout your home to protect your laminate floor and make it more comfortable for your dog. If the dog scratch is minor, you can fill in the scratch with specialized color coordinating pencils.