If you have a dog and hardwood floors, you must learn how to prevent your pup from damaging the wood to keep the floors in good condition for as long as possible.

Regardless of a pet or not, hardwood floors need refinishing from time to time, and luckily with natural wood, it is easier to accomplish. Minimize the times a floor needs refinishing by learning how to prevent pet-related damage from happening in the first place.

Regularly Trim Your Dog’s Nails

You should already be doing this regularly, but if you do not make a routine of trimming your dog’s nails, they will grow out of hand and scratch your floors. You can cut their nails with pet nail clippers or use a grinder that will file down the nails.

Wax the Floorboards

Wax is applied to keep that elegant shine on the floor, but it also works as a preventative to damage. If you do not wax your floor, and your dog does the famous Scooby-Doo run because the doorbell just rang, their nails are more likely to dig into the floor and scratch it.

The wax might not prevent the scratching from happening entirely, but it will minimize the density of the scratches, and with wax, they will only be surface level—which is easy to buff out.

Walk the Dog Daily

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There are three important reasons why you need to walk your dog daily:

• No matter the dog, they require a walk to keep them in good health.
• A walk will drain some of their energy, saving your hardwood floors from excessive damage due to their high energy levels.
• The cement and concrete will work as a natural nail file that will keep the nails on your dog dull and at a manageable length.

Use Carpet Runners

To prevent further damage on your hardwood floors caused by your dog, add an extra protective layer by placing carpet runners in high-traffic areas. If you notice your dog favoring certain areas in a room with hardwood, place carpets over those areas. If your dog were to get the zoomies, they’d mess up the carpets instead of your beautiful floors.

One of the best properties of natural hardwood flooring is that you can refinish it, when need be, and you would never know there was damage in the first place. Don’t get overly worried about your dog damaging the floors; if you perform regular maintenance and monitor your pet, everything will work itself out.