What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

Getting my old carpet ripped out next week and having laminated flooring. I was wondering how many of you had done something similar.

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

We got dirt coloured, 'guaranteed against wee' carpet

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

Covered every inch of quite lovely hard flooring with a totally random and quite ugly (bought in a hurry over a single weekend) collection of rugs and mats to prevent slipping.

Adopted the "no moveable object below 1.5m" and "log basket on top of the TV" style of interior design. Just waiting for the call from beautiful homes magazine now...I'm sure it'll catch on.

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

Bought a stair gate and fire guard (one of those big nursery guards) and following the JulieT guide to home-styling.

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

[quote author=JulieT link=topic=5560.msg70385#msg70385 date=1398237728]
Covered every inch of quite lovely hard flooring with a totally random and quite ugly (bought in a hurry over a single weekend) collection of rugs and mats to prevent slipping.
[/quote]

Same here - squares of vet bed all over the show. We have hard wood floors and they were far too slippy for a pup. Now Tatze uses them to lie on, so we keep them in place

Baby gate at the bottom of the stars.

Baby gate half way down the utility room (her obsession with socks and pegs became too much for me!)

Now we are preparing a 'spending' area at the end of the patio for a prospective guide dog pup.

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

It probably sounds daft, but we crawled around the house & garden with our heads at puppy height to try and see the world from a puppy's perspective. That helped us to spot all sorts of potential problems before Holly arrived. As a result we made lots of changes:

Replaced the fence along one side of the garden to make it escape proof.
Lots of mats to prevent slipping on the wooden and tiled floors.
Baby gate across the kitchen door.
Built a partition in the utility room to protect brooms, hoover, mops and other appliances.
Baby locks on all the kitchen cupboards to secure the food, bins and cleaning meterials.
Made a portable screen that can be moved around the house to temporaily isolate areas (stairs & hallway in particular)
Blanked off any power sockets that were at a chewable height.
Moved furniture around so that cables were inaccessible.

I'm sure that there was more but I just cant think of it at the moment.

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

[quote author=JulieT link=topic=5560.msg70385#msg70385 date=1398237728]
Adopted the ..... "log basket on top of the TV" style of interior design. Just waiting for the call from beautiful homes magazine now...I'm sure it'll catch on.
[/quote]

We have a very similar look.... Its time will come...

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

We got two baby gates...............that's it. I feel quite left out !

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

Don't feel left out as we only put in one baby gate ;D

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

I win the competition for the worse dressed floors in the aid of non slip for dog. Or, happy for others to challenge this floor of horrors!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/97932779@N08/13980989224/

(sorry about appalling fingers across the rubbish ipad vid - I'm supposed to be working so was in a rush).

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

[quote author=JulieT link=topic=5560.msg70409#msg70409 date=1398244901]
I win the competition for the worse dressed floors in the aid of non slip for dog. Or, happy for others to challenge this floor of horrors!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/97932779@N08/13980989224/

(sorry about appalling fingers across the rubbish ipad vid - I'm supposed to be working so was in a rush).
[/quote]

I love it - you have roads, fields and farms on your floor!!

As a serious point Jane Martin - carpet is much better for dogs' developing bones but worse for us, cleaning wise. So you may find yourself getting a fabulous floor then largely covering it up, like we did. Vet bed 'mats' were great for dealing with those 'little accidents' mind you!

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

hhhmmmm eclectic I think

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

[quote author=Boogie link=topic=5560.msg70411#msg70411 date=1398245575]
I love it - you have roads, fields and farms on your floor!!
[/quote]

Yes, the mat in Charlie's room is the only one I like! It's nice and cheery at least!

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

We hardly made any changes inside. Bess was mainly confined to the kitchen when she was a puppy and only allowed into other rooms by invitation. Now she is going on for two she generally only 'steals' things from the floor and even leaves the log basket alone! It has made us a bit tidier as she loves socks/ shoes/ tea towels (luckily she only mouths these but doesn't destroy them).
Alice

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

[quote author=JulieT link=topic=5560.msg70409#msg70409 date=1398244901]
I win the competition for the worse dressed floors in the aid of non slip for dog[/quote]

No comment ;D Hilarious.

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

I only changed my garden fences so they were secure and 6ft high

I have taught Harley not to take things she can see......she does sometimes pinch something and run around trying to get us to chase her though ;D

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

Before Molly graced us with her presence we had all the doors open downstairs to reveal our lovely new laminate floors (kitchen, utility, hall, study) leading through into the carpeted lounge and dining room. It looked lovely, open, clean, airy and spacious.

Now we have bolts on the doors so we can limit her range of destruction to the kitchen (muddy paw marks all over white units) and hall which now features a baby stair gate (we are pensioners for heavens sake)

In the garden OH has just built a fence to keep her out of the vegetable patch, and a gate the other end of the garden to stop her going round the back of the shed and causing mayhem.

We have finally lowered the Venetian Blinds in the conservatory and she seems to have lost her interest I them.

Next week I'm thinking of pushing the boat out and hanging a tea towel from the towel rail.

Nearly forgot, had to put up a new set of coat hooks high up in the conservatory to stop her munching on our coats.

Just for the record, the door between the kitchen and the conservatory still bears the marks of Alice, dog before last and the bay window has scratches where Holly used to put her paws to look out the window. Know what, I don't mind one little bit. They are memories of old friends.

It is my home and reflects me and my life with my animals.

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

Oh yes - I forgot that outside OH put three new gates so that she can't get down the side of the house and out of sight - and he built a barrier to stop her getting past the raised bed to my gardening stuff.

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

Bit by bit. Main investments have been baby gate at foot of stairs and (three days ago) big gate at front of property! Otherwise we're just adopting the JulieT school of interior design. And our carpet is now no longer boring old beige, but an interesting mottled design after a few months of puppy combined with guaranteed-wont-stain-your-carpet-oh-wont-it-ha-ha cleaning product. Grrr.

 

Re: What home improvements have you made for your dogs?

Julie, the random rug collection doubtless sets off the raised log basket to perfection...

I took our rugs up. They had tassels. I haven't put them back down... but that's also because I secretly don't like them. OH bought them unsupervised. :
Clare