How to make your house dog friendly

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[AD] In addition to the two children I have under my roof (three if you include the husband!) I also have two dogs. One is still a young puppy coming up to 18 months old and my eldest is 10. If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you will know we lost our oldest dog late last year but for 6 months or so we were lucky enough to have 3 of the beauties!

I think it’s safe to say we’ve seen a lot of accidents and have waited to do things that we should’ve done many years ago whilst looking after dogs so today I’m sharing with you my top 5 ways to make your family home dog friendly!

How to puppy proof your home?

Dog friendly sofa

Although I’m not the biggest fans of leather settees anymore because I just don’t feel they are as homely as fabric.. they ARE whether we like it or not, the most dog friendly style chair you could probably get.

Our two eldest dogs haven’t really been chewers (they did the corner of a cupboard once and an architrave but never again!), however the puppy did in fact take a shine to our sofa and has chewed the corner and one of the chair arms through to the stuffing!

Pet proof furniture

That is one of the reasons I wouldn’t yet look at getting any other style of settee because although it’s unsightly what he has done, it can be stitched (kind of !), but what he would’ve done to a fabric one could’ve meant we had no sofa left whatsoever!

In addition to the fact you might have a ‘chewer’, if you let your dogs sleep on the sofa, having leather means you can just continuously wipe it down. It is the ultimate pet proof furniture! Any moulting hair just sits on the top and can be hoovered up but the best bit of all is you can wipe down the chair as often as you need to.

With fabric chairs you run the risk of it eventually smelling like dog if they regularly sleep on it of course and you can’t truly keep it clean.

Avoid dangly wires

Again, no issues with my older two but ‘the chewer’ has also chewed through my hoover cable AND a cable from TV!

We have now secured them to the wall and skirting boards with some ties and conduit… a dog owners best friend!

Laminate flooring

During our last lot of renovations we decided to laminate the whole downstairs of our house. It wasn’t necessarily by choice although the kids played a part; I was sick of seeing mud being dragged in in the hall way but our main reason for doing so was due to the dogs.

Puppy proofing!

Having laminate everywhere makes things so much easier to tidy up any accidents, particularly if you have puppies or even old dogs to be fair, you can clean it regularly and it obviously doesn’t hold the smell like carpets.

dog proof your cupboards

My eldest dog can get into cupboards… that’s all you need to know!

The cereal cupboard and their treat cupboard is obviously her favourite too because those are the only two she even attempts.

Don’t ask me how… she doesn’t jump up to pull on the handle or anything crazy like that but she just seems to forcefully push her nose up against is and drag/nudges it open!

Child locks will prevent this and as soon as it slams back in their face, they will leave it… trust me!

Fake dog friendly plants

I would love some real plants in my house but it’s actually nothing to do with the fact we have dogs that we don’t…. it’s because I kill them! They just die on me!

Obviously the fact you can’t be sure which plants are 100% dog friendly and if you do leave your dogs on their own in a room with a plant and soil during the day you run the risk of all sorts!

Besides the fact some are poisonous to dogs, fake plants are just so much better if you have both kids and children under the same roof!

If they do one day just fancy a nibble on a leaf you don’t need to worry that they are going to poisoned for a start but you are also not going to get mud all over the carpet if they decide to have a play whilst you are out either (kids and dogs!)

I really hope that helps and gives you a few ideas on ways you can dog proof your house.

I’d love to hear of any tips to new dog owners that you have on ways to make your house dog friendly drop me a comment down below & feel free to Pin for later!

This is a collaborative post.