Wednesday, February 20, 2013
By John Voket
February is Responsible Pet Owner's Month, so as a pet lover, I will devote a few segments in the coming weeks to taking the best care of your pet while keeping your home free of the damage, stains and smells pets may provide, along with all that wonderful companionship.The LaRue Team, an architectural firm in Austin, Texas, recently shared great advice from Laura Foster-Bobroff, providing a few pointers on taking better care of your home while exhibiting responsible pet ownership at the same time.
According to Foster-Bobroff, the most common by-product of pet ownership is a ruined floor. Pet urine flowing between floorboards can cause wood to warp if left unchecked.
She advises you wipe up “accidents” immediately and monitor wandering puppies. A puddle allowed to remain on the floor will seep and eventually be absorbed by the flooring and sub-flooring.
An animal will return to the same place to "go" again and again. To prevent this, Foster-Bobroff says use odor-neutralizing products to clean up, discourage repeat behavior, and limit an untrained puppy to areas where cleanup is easy-- like tiled kitchen floors.
Foster-Bobroff knows crating an animal is a popular training method, but galvanized metal crates are not waterproof. Water bowls in crates can also spill over or leak and often creating a chemical reaction between the wood floor and metal.
Even small spills disturb finish on wood floors, cause stains, or degrade grout between tiles. For crate training or "free range" pets, a mat under food and water bowls can prevent minor damage.
Finally, large dogs with large nails can do deep damage to flooring. So Foster-Bobroff says keep nails trimmed regularly to prevent small scrapes in the surface coating of wood flooring.
She says over time, the constant scraping of nails as they run back and forth between rooms will dull and wear away floor finish, especially in some pre-manufactured materials with thinner coatings.
In our next segment on the subject, we'll fetch you a few more tips on keeping your pet from damaging windows, doors and appliances.
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