The new fashionable trend for flooring in our homes is tile and wood/laminate. It is much cleaner than carpet after all. Carpet? who the heck wants carpet in their house? No one, not anymore, and that includes me; but what do I have in my newly renovated bedroom? Carpet. Yep, I dragged myself kicking and screaming to the flooring store to pick it out. Walking past the beautiful tile and wood flooring, I head to the back of the store. The back of the store where all the stuff no body wants anymore hangs out.
“I hate carpet, I don’t want it,” I told the flooring guy. “But I have two dogs who sleep on our bed” I explained. He didn’t care about my reasoning of course and showed me what they had. Elsa is very afraid of slippery floors, she has fallen a couple of times on our laminate in the family room; which is covered with huge carpet area rugs. No matter what I want, Miss Elsa needs secure footing.
I have to admit that there are many days I sit watching videos of dogs playing on slippery surfaces and I shudder. All I see is an accident in the making. Broken legs, torn ACLs, cracked jaws, ligament sprains and more. I have seen videos where a guardian is puzzled why a dog will not come out of a room. I can clearly see that the dog does not like the surface outside of the room that they are in. You can tell when a dog is scared to walk on a surface and Elsa is petrified to walk on slippery surface. Watching dogs charge down a hallway on a slippery surface makes me cringe, I truly cannot watch.
Sure I could have put down tile and covered it with runners. But my room is not big and by the time I covered her walking area, I’d have carpeted my room pretty much, dumb. Dogs need traction to move properly; ligament or tendon injuries can be catastrophic.
There are very rare situations when a wolf in the wild would be on a slippery surface. I am hyper aware of surface and dogs. I like to see a good traction surface under newborns, young pups, adults and most importantly seniors. Some blankets offer traction to newborns, while others remain slippery. If a puppy cannot dig their nails in and move forward easily; if they paddle around like a seal, their surface is not good enough. Puppies grow muscles with traction; muscles that protect their joints from tendon and ligament damage.
If I happen to hear nails sliding around in my house, I immediately know that Elsa has slipped off of a runner somewhere. Even if it’s not really slippery, her fear tells her that she will fall and of course then she does. When we moved into this home that we are in there was old wood flooring everywhere except a few rooms with carpet. So because of this we have runners everywhere that she needs one.
Watch your dog through their day to day. If they are slipping around, put some carpet back in your life. Yes, it’s important.