Choosing a Pet Friendly Rug

Owning a pet has many positive points but come the winter when the back garden is muddy and paw prints start to appear on you new living room carpet you can begin to see a few of the negative points of being a pet owner. When you own pets slowly but surely your house starts to become ‘practical’ and tailored around them and one of the first places that people start is the flooring. People put down wooden flooring to try and alleviate the problem of muddy paw prints, but in many cases it is not a pet friendly solution on it’s own. Rugs on the other hand are ideal – whether you have wooden flooring or carpet they make the perfect pet friend solution. When shopping for rugs – as a pet owner – you do have to choose the right type and there are several factors to take in to account. This hub takes a look at five of these factors:

Put quite simply, the shorter the pile the better. There is no point in getting buying a large shag rug as it will cause as many problems as it solves. A shorter pile will make the rug far less likely to retain smells and is much easier to clean off muddy paw prints. Long pile rugs will also retain a lot of fluff and other debris that your pet will bring in the home so they really do not make a great solution.

Rugs with a non slip backing used to be only available for bathroom mats but this is no longer the case and you can get hallway rug runners that have a non slip backing. There are of course after market non-slip backings which you can add to any rug around your home but in my experience you are much better of going for a complete rug that has a non- slip hardwearing latex backing. If you have one or more ‘lively’ pets you will soon find that the rug with out the non slip backing is in the corner of your living room and is does get rather annoying putting it back in place.

The whole point of putting rugs on the floor as a pet owner is to keep you home clean so it makes sense that you buy a rug that is machine washable. There are many synthetic non-slip rugs on the market that are washable and you can simply pop these in the washing machine of a low temperature 30^o wash. Having rug that is machine washable is essential to having a fresh smelling and hygienic home.

Although natural material rugs are better for the environment as they are far easier to recycle they are not ideally suited to rugs that need to resist stains and heavy pet use. You would be well advised to look for a rug that is made from a synthetic material such as acrylic as you will find that they are far easier to keep clean, are resistant to fading and do not hold smells.

This last point may seem silly but you do want to consider how comfortable the rug you buy is to sit on… from your pets perspective. A sea grass rug – although it may look beautiful – or a bamboo rug are not very comfortable to sit on for your pet so you should really be looking for a softer rug.

If you take in to account these five points when shopping for a pet friendly rug you can’t go too far wrong, so make sure that you do your research before you part with your money.