[ksweber]

We are about to bring home 8 wk old pup, and a friend suggested that we should get rugs or mats for our slippery hardwood kitchen+breakfast room floor, where the pup and our family will be spending most of its time. Our friend said pups can easily slip while running/scampering in the house, and this can damage sensitive developing joints. Is this something I need to worry about? The floors are that "laminated wood" so it IS pretty slippery.

 

[sarah]

we have laminate floors. To be perfectly honest, I never ever worried about them when we brought Milly home. She is just over 18 months old now and her joints all seem fine, but she only ever had problems trying to run at full speed on them which I always discouraged. She never fell as a puppy or hurt herself and loves them in summer because they're nice and cool.

Plus, she always finds it really hard to get traction when she did run which meant she never runs very fast at all. And she's become an expert at learning when to start sliding to stop herself from hitting the walls *lol* !! It's fun to watch. We do only have a very small house so maybe if the house had been bigger we would have had more issues? I really don't know. But I do know one thing.... they are HEAVEN for the doggy hair. Don't have to worry about it getting stuck into the carpet!

 

[mokhahouse]

You don't have to put down area rugs everywhere but I would recommend that where the pup is likely to walk a lot you should. My Mokha has hip and elbow dysplasia and we have tiled floors. I will never know if all those times he slipped while he was growing had anything to do with it but I would never risk it again. We have area rugs and runners everywhere now, I would rather vacuum than risk him hurting himself especially since we paid out thousands for surgery.

 

[HersheyK's Dad]

That pup is going to slip and slide and tumble on whatever kind of floor you have. The only question is how far will it slide.

Probably don't need the rugs, but they won't hurt anything.

On the other hand, something like a throw rug is just going to give you something else to teach him not to chew on.

 

[Bob Pr.]

I strongly agree with Mokhahouse -- far better safe than later sorry wondering after $$$$$$$$ surgeries.

Puff hates laminate floors and absolutely refuses to walk on them unless absolutely ordered.

Get something cheap and eventually discardable which is big enough for your pup to be active on; that'll give your puppy the opportunity to learn the difference and choose where to go and what activities are proper where.