Carpeting is an excellent choice of flooring for those of us with families. Especially families with little ones who haven’t yet mastered walking. Carpet is soft and comfortable. You can lay down on it and play. And it’s a surprisingly flexible choice in terms of design. Carpet is a fantastic option for homes with small kids.

Unfortunately, there are other certain family members that don’t handle carpet as well as small children. Pets. Our animal friends are very much a part of the family in most cases, meaning they walk on the same floors that we do. But you may have noticed there are more than a couple differences between yourself and Sparky. Hopefully one of the biggest of these differences being that you are more unlikely to use the carpet as a toilet.

There are two major problems when it comes to pets and maintaining a carpet; tearing of the carpet and liquid damage.

If you have cats or dogs (or any animal with claws or long nails), do not get a looping carpet. As in, any carpet where the fiber doesn’t just stick straight up but instead loops around back into the base. This is a pretty common style, and it is very susceptible to being eviscerated by dogs or cats. The loop creates a hook for their claws or nails to latch onto. When they pull away, so does the loop, and it breaks. This will fray your carpet very quickly. Instead, buy a frieze style carpet. In a frieze carpet there are no places for a cat’s claws to snag onto. It’s a much looser style. This way, Sparky can’t accidentally fray your entire hallway in an afternoon.

Now, obviously the best way to protect your carpet from your pets using it as their bathroom is to housetrain them. But, there are secondary measures you can take. Bealieu’s Bliss line has a series called EverClean. These carpets are made with pet accidents in mind. They drench the carpet in a Scotchgard protector to repel liquid spills and to hold the spill from setting into the carpet. Then they treat the carpet with their own Magic Fresh odor reducer, which has been proven to eliminate > 80% of pet accident odors. This line of carpets is something Floorsmith encourages homeowners with pets to use. If for some reason you need carpet but you also have pets that you’re worried about, the EverCleanis as solid a choice as you’re going to get.

Pets are tough on any type of flooring, carpet and hardwood especially. It’s important to remember that no floor is “pet proof”. But if you take the advice laid out above, you will have taken measure to limit the risk of costly damage that your dogs and cats pose.

SCV Floorsmith, located in Stevenson Ranch, is always available to answer any flooring related questions you may have. Whether you’re in Canyon Country, Saugus, Newhall, Valencia, or down south in San Fernando, we want you to have the right information.