Getting new carpet with old pets - wise?

[jazzcat]

As you may or may not know I have Disney - dog - who is 12 years old and Ripley is my oldest cat at age 12. Disney's bladder is not what it used to be but we are in a pretty good routine right now. Ripley is the vomit king, sorry to be so blunt. Anyway, we are in desperate need of new flooring and I want carpet because I don't care for the sound of laminate when you walk on it and hardwood is so expensive. Is this a wise move with an older dog and cat? Anyone have any experiences or thoughts on the subject.

I just don't think I can wait much longer for new carpet because ours is so old and worn. Also, I think new carpeting with stain protection will clean better than this old junk I currently have. Oh yeah, we plan to get Stainmaster carpet with the new Pet Pad underneath which has the enzyme killer in it. Sounds pretty neat.

[Vermontcat]

I will be interested to see what replies you get since I was just at a carpet store this morning.
We are in the process of finishing off part of our basement and are looking for a neutral(sandy brown) color rug for the family room area.
Maybe you want to pick a color or pattern that will help hide any accidents.
My cat Samantha is 16 and she does save her hairballs for the basement or bathroom which has a throw rug which is easy enough to wash.
We also plan to put some linoleum down in the laundry room area where Samantha's litter box is too, so if she misses the box then it will be easy to clean up.

What rooms are you planning on redoing? Are they in the main living area?
I think it will be easier to find something for the basement since not too many house guests get to go down there.

Good luck and let me know what you decide on.

[popcornbird]

We recently bought a new house and got new carpets installed before moving in. It has only been a little over a month since we moved, so we don't have experience with stains *yet*, but we got a 5 star rated, stain resistant carpet, which was the highest quality available. From what we were told, anything that spills on the carpet will stay at the surface and not soak in. We were told stains clean easily. We did get a light color because it makes the house look more spacious, but we don't have young kids or dogs in the house, so there's no one around who could easily ruin it.

You mentioned hardwood floors being too expensive. We got tiles in our family room and kitchen, and personally, I just *love* it. I actually wish we got tiles everywhere downstairs. Its incredibly easy to clean and take care of, looks beautiful, and it was much cheaper than hardwood floors too. We had hardwood floors in our previous house and weren't even going to consider it. I really dislike hardwood floors. They're hard to take care of, and the one we had got scratched VERY easily. Its color also seemed to fade with time. Maybe it wasn't a good quality hardwood, but we had a bad experience with it and didn't want hardwood floors in our new house, nor did we want vinyl. The tiles looks great, and so far, so good. The only thing is they will probably tend to get cold during the winter. It isn't a huge problem for us because it doesn't get too cold here, but it might be something to think about if it gets really cold where you live. It should be fine with the heater though. If you want to consider tiles, I could show you a picture of our's so you could see how it looks. I would recommend it over carpet for older animals, because no matter how good the carpet, personally, I wouldn't want any accidents on it. We don't even wear shoes in our carpetted areas so I guess I'm a bit paranoid about getting the carpet dirty.

[Tonya]

I got new carpet earlier this year, and the stains do come out! It sounds like you are getting a good carpet, so I would go for it.

[catnapper]

There are so many new fibers out there that are formulated for just such accidents. Have you visited a carpet store yet? They will be able to direct you to a carpet that would be best for your situation.

When we recarpeted three years ago, we bought a good padding that had Arm & Hammer pet stain protection on the bottom to keep the pet stains from hitting the subfloor and it also blocks any odors that might already be there. That made a difference at the time--- with our old caret, our old dog had a habit of doing everything anywhere, and Allen was picking up on the habit. The padding blocked all of the old smells, and Allen has never had an "accident" anywhere the new carpet was laid down.

[Tonya]

If someone had told me about that pet guard, I would have bought that too! That sounds great.

[RICHARD]

My mom has a saying that translates into..

Everything that has a use will eventually wear out.

Poop happens, so does hairballs, kids, mud......

There used to be an old Roseann comedy routine that went something like this.

"Close the refridgerator door!!!"

"Close the refridgerator !!!"

"Close the!!"

"Close!!!"

"PEH!!!!"

Don't worry about the pets who don't know the value of new carpet. Worry about the people who do.

[Ally Cat's Mommy]

Are you around most of the time, so you can react quickly to "accidents"before they can seep in? Do the furkids have the run of the whole house all the time? Maybe you could restrict their access to certain rooms when no-one is home. For example I don't let Ally and Connor into the bedrooms or lounge (which are carpeted) unless I am with them, as the rest of the house is tiled.

I have to agree with Pops - I LOVE tiles. They are hard-wearing and really easy to keep clean. Also if you are worried about the rooms being cold in winter you can always get under-floor heating.

[jazzcat]

Thanks for the advice.

Someone from the flooring store just left. He came to measure and figure out where some mystery stains are coming from. Turns out our dark stained baseboards are bleeding onto the carpet so we need to apply polyurethane or paint. I think we are going to paint all our trim white because I am sick of dark wood trim.

Anyway, he told me to reconsider the wood-look laminate because it won't stain or scratch but I just don't know. He said we've picked out one of the best stain resistant carpets on the market so at least that should help. We are going to put tile down in the bathrooms, foyer and kitchen but I really prefer carpet for my main living areas and bedrooms. Basically we are redoing all the floors except living and dining rooms since we did those last year.

I do keep Disney confined to one area when we are not home but my main problem is Barfman Ripley. He prefers the soft carpet to puke on and he goes through spells where he throws up a lot, then it will stop for a few weeks and then start back up. The vet hasn't been able to help an either.

Looks like I need to take Richard's mom's outlook.

[micki76]

Originally posted by popcornbird
I really dislike hardwood floors. They're hard to take care of, and the one we had got scratched VERY easily. Its color also seemed to fade with time. Maybe it wasn't a good quality hardwood, but we had a bad experience with it and didn't want hardwood floors in our new house, nor did we want vinyl. The tiles looks great, and so far, so good.

My hardwood in the entry way and kitchen has been VERY durable. I just recently found out that our builder FUBARed and put in hardwood instead of the laminate we were supposed to get. Yipee! We were thinking of doing laminate in the living room and took one of the extra planks we have into the floor store. She looked at it and told us it wasn't laminate, but wood! Imagine my surprise. The bad part was the price to do the hardwood in our living room. It's a HUGE room (400+ sq feet), so that's out for now. I told Michael that had I known it was hardwood all along, I would have been much more gentle with it the last 5 years!

We currently have very nice commercial grade carpet that's glued to the concrete slab foundation. It's VERY easy to clean and holds NO odor if there's a pee pee accident. It never stains at all, vomit, poop, grease, it all comes out. It took me a while to get used to the feel of it, but after the way our old carpet with the pad smelled, I'll never have a pad again. It's just a huge sponge, holding all that yucky stuff.

Here's what it looks like:

[Twisterdog]

My personal opinion ...

Carpet has got to be one of the dirtiest, and hardest to clean, things in the world. Think about it .... basically cloth laying on your floor for decades. Sure, you can clean it to some degree, but you are NEVER going to get all the dirt out of it. Bleck.

I used to have carpet in my whole house. With eleven dogs, I was CONSTANTLY cleaning carpets, and they were constantly getting dirty. So I ripped them up out of the kitchen, bathroom, hallway, laundry room and entry way and put in Pergo laminate flooring. It is, in my opinon, the PERFECT flooring ... beautiful, practically maintenance free, and SO easy to clean. I LOVE it. I have eleven dogs and a dog door, and there are no scratches on my floor whatsoever, after years of constant traffic.

[jazzcat]

Twisterdog - you sure made laminate sound good. HMM, what to do?!

[Twisterdog]

Seriously, I will NEVER have anything but laminate again. It is truly the best of both worlds - beautiful like hardwood, but SOOOO easy.

My sister and my niece both just got laminate in their houses instead of carpet, and they both LOVE it. My mom is doing her house next. I've never heard anyone I know say they were anything less than thrilled with it, especially with pets.

[anna_66]

Yes, we are in need of new flooring too. Since Angus's spell of being sick he hasn't been able to hold his bladder so well. We knew he had a dribble her and there, but now it's quite a bit more than a dribble He's started wearing a belly wrap but now the carpet is in pretty bad shape.
We've been thinking of going the laminte way because I think it would be much easier to keep clean. I'd never heard of Pet Pad before. I wish they would have had that years ago!

[gini]

Wow

I just saw some Pergo that is not that old in a friend's home and they have ONE dog - and three adults living there. The Pergo looks awful - scratched - you can see skid marks............

My friend just hates it and can hardly wait to rip it all out and put in hardwood.

Now, as to the carpet, I will follow this carefully, because I have carpeting that is ten years old and has really had serious abuse from many kitty cats.

I dread spending a fortune on new carpeting and find a stain!

I have spent a fortune on carpet cleaners...............tried them all!