Best Way to Clean Hardwood Floors with Pets

Many people avoid hardwood floors if they have pets because of the damage a pet can do. However, with quality flooring from Southern Luxe Flooring, you can have the floors you always wanted – even if you have pets. With just a little extra care and some tricks, you can enjoy the floors you always wanted.

How to Keep Hardwood Floors Clean When You Have Dogs

With pets, it seems like cleaning is a never-ending chore, especially if you have a dog or cat that sheds a lot. Combining tips about the best way to clean floors with pets and tricks, such as using throw rugs, can make your dream a reality. You can even put wood floors in less-traveled areas and laminate flooring for pets or the best vinyl plank flooring for pets in areas that are more traveled or where you place pet food and water bowls.

Prevent Scratches with Shorter Nails

Keep your pets’ nails trimmed. You’ll significantly minimize scratches on the floors. Additionally, when your pet has longer nails, the risk of breaking a nail is much larger. Your pet could catch a nail on a tuft of grass and completely rip it out of the nail bed. Keeping the nails short is a “win” for you and your pets. If you need help trimming the nails, a groomer or veterinarian can help you.

Choose the Right Wood Species

Some species of wood dents and scratches easier than others. Pine flooring will dent and scratch more because pine is a very soft wood – it has a lower density. If you choose hardwood flooring, such as oak, Brazilian walnut or hard maple, you’ll have less risk of scratches and dents. Pine, black cherry and black walnut are softer wood, so they tend to scratch easily.

The more dense a species is, the harder it is to damage. However, it could still sustain damage if you are not careful. Even hardwoods could still sustain damage if a pet’s nails are not trimmed.

Pick a Light Wood Color

If possible, choose a wood that is light in color. Some medium colors will also work. The darker the wood, the easier it is to see scratches, pet dander, pet hair and dust. The lighter wood allows scratches to blend in better.

Use Rugs in Vulnerable Areas

Adding some stylish rugs for high-traffic areas helps reduce scratches not only from pets but from people wearing shoes, too. Placing rugs under food bowls also protects the floor from drips. Runners in hallways where pets are more likely to run also help protect the wood floors.

Clean Accidents Quickly

The best way to clean hardwood floors with pets includes cleaning up messes as quickly as possible. If you keep moisture off the floor, an accident or a spill isn’t too damaging as long as you act quickly. 

A waterproof coating on hardwood floors also helps, but you should never rely on it to protect the floors if you leave liquid on them for long periods of time. If you or your pets do damage the floor, it is easy enough to refinish, which restores your floors to their original beauty.

Add Protection Around Water Bowls

Adding a rubber mat or even a rug with a rubber backing under your pets’ bowls helps protect hardwood floors from drips – and keeps you from constantly cleaning around water bowls.

Carefully Choose the Litter Box Location

If a cat has an accident outside of its litter box and you don’t catch it, it could damage the floor. Placing litter boxes in a room with tile or placing a rubber mat under the box can help protect all flooring, including wood and vinyl flooring.

Protect Your Hardwood Floors with the Right Cleaning Solutions

Never clean hardwood floors with water or other chemicals. Use a special hardwood floor cleaner for floors that have a polyurethane finish. If your floors are finished with hardwax oil, use a cleaner designed specifically for hardwax oils.

Clean Hardwood Floors Regularly

Always clean your hardwood floors regularly. Tracked in mud, sand and other debris can scratch the floor when you walk through it. If your pets track in mud, the moisture from the mud could damage hardwood flooring.

Sweep your floors a few times per week, then use a duster-type sweeper to get anything the broom missed.

You can also use a pet vacuum cleaner as long as it doesn’t have beaters. The beaters will scratch and dent hardwood flooring. Even so, a vacuum cleaner often doesn’t get everything up as it should. You can vacuum, then use a duster-type sweeper to get anything the vacuum missed.

Another option is to use a rubber broom. Once you sweep or vacuum, the rubber broom will pick up pet hair that the vacuum or broom missed. However, a rubber broom could scratch hardwood floors if sand or other debris is stuck on the rubber part and you press hard.

Southern Luxe Hardwood Flooring Options for Pets

If you’re still not convinced you can have beautiful hardwood floors with pets, Southern Luxe carries other types of flooring for pet homes, including laminate flooring for pets or the best vinyl plank flooring for pets.

Browse through our flooring options and colors, and then start your project of replacing your floors with the floors of your dreams.