My house has hardwood floors in every room. Each has a large area rug in the center and I put down rugs and runners in the high-traffic areas, but I don’t want to *carpet. *I love the harwood, and I want to be able to at least see bits of it here and there.
The dogs’ claws have scratched the floor in several areas. One of them discovered that if she hits the rug at the right angle, she can slide.* Whee!* The others chase after her. Scratches ensue.
“Goddammit,” my husband said morosely, looking at the damage. “There’s gotta be something we can do.”
I keep the dogs’ nails trimmed, and try to protect the floors with rugs, but some areas are starting to show some wear.
How can I repair this? The scratches are not down into the wood-- it’s just the finish that has been marred.
How can I protect the wood?
Can anything be done without having to refinish the whole floor? (I don’t want different colored patches, or areas with more shine than others.)
When you say “trim” do you literally mean “trim”, like with clippers?
You might want to consider grinding instead. Just get a little rotary tool (like the cordless version of the dremel) and put the sanding drum in it. Use medium grit paper. It’s actually more comfortable for the dogs (as long as you don’t let too much heat build up–only spend a few seconds at a time on any one nail), and you can get a much smoother nail afterwards.
If you grind every 2-3 days, you’ll be able to push the quick back and give them very short nails.
Oh, and as for the repair: It depends dramatically on how the floor is finished. Some finishes are difficult or impossible to repair, others are very easy to repair.
The ones that are very easy to repair (like shellac, wax, or wax over shellac) are older and require more maintenance, but I’ve heard they can be a good choice with dogs.
The house was built in the 1930s, but I can see that the previous owners put a modern finish over the old one.
If I wax over the scratches, will that cause them to dissapear? I don’t mind the maintenance so much-- I have a housekeeper who comes in to clean my floors and if it’s a product that can be put down like “Mop & Glow” it would be no bother.
I used to see a doberman for nail work under anesthesia. The owner entered into a lease for a house that allowed one dog on the condition that the dog’s nails be kept very short. So, 2 - 3 times a year the dog was anesthetized and had its nails cut all the way back, then cauterized. The dog would be in pain for a few days.
We have oak floors, with a swedish finish. After 4 years since finishing the floor, our 2 dogs haven’t been able to put any significant wear on the floor. I suspect that the type of wood plays a large factor, not just the finish.
The only true scratch in the finish we’ve had has been while dragging a metal bed frame. We do have a lot of “impressions” however, where the oak gets grooved, but a true scratch (that penetrates the finish) is close to impossible on this floor.
The above statement may make this a very difficult project. If noncompatable products were used, or if the right products were used and the job just wasn’t done well, then this might be what is allowing the damage to easily occur in the first place.
You didn’t say how old the dogs are, but I’m going to guess that they’re 1-2 years old or so. If so, then don’t worry too much: They’ll become much less rambunctious at around 3 or so. So you’ll probably only have to put up with the running-pell-mell-around-the-house for another year or two. In the meanwhile, try to keep them well-exercised, so they’ll burn more of their energy doing things other than claw-plowing your oak.
Would dog booties work? We have some that I put on my dog (duh) for walks in the snow because she has very hairy feet and is prone to getting ice balls between her toes.
It took her about 5 minutes to get used to wearing them and since then she’s had no problems.
Of course it would make the dogs slip a LOT on the floors but I would assme they’d get used to them pretty quickly. They were really cheap (from Walmart).
I came in to recommend soft claws too–they’re just rubber tips and last a month or so and designed specifically for the type of situation you described.
Back in high school I worked as a floor technician and part of my job was to refinish hardwood floors.
It sounds to me like a previous owner of your home may have committed the ultimate “no-no” for hardwood floors: waxing them. Waxing and buffing a hardwood floor will help conceal deep scratches and make the floor look new again; but the wax scratches easily, and after awhile, your floor will look worse than it ever did before the waxing. To make it look better, you have to re-wax, and the cycle continues.
A professional cleaning company may be able to remove the wax from your floor.
But the good news is, your dogs are most likely not “destroying your hardwood floors”, just the wax finish.
I forgot to mention, DO NOT USE MOP & GLOW ON ANY “NO-WAX” FLOOR (or any other store-bought product that claims to “polish” no-wax floors). You’ll dull your hard finish and at the same time create the wax-cycle problem stated above.
I thought that was the entire point on old-style finishes (shellac or varnish). The wax protects the actual finish and can be easily renewed. You don’t have to hire anyone to strip the wax unless you want to - homemakers used to regularly strip and re-wax the floors when it became necessary (not terribly often). IIRC, it’s a pain because it’s a hard, messy job, but it certainly doesn’t require professionals.
Unless you’re talking about wax over a modern finish, which might require professionals (I’m not sure).
The pro’s that put down the polyurethane coat I got on my hardwood floors 15 or so years ago told me to use a specific type of wax (I forget what) on those floors. The finish we just put down recently (different house, no professionals involved) specifically says not to wax.
I’m not a floor professional, but I grew up on wood floors and remember helping wax them.