dogs, designer dogs, yorkipoo, yorkie poo, pets, blog, photography, floor, wood floor, phobias

Flooring Phobias


Thanks for liking us! Sadie and I really appreciate all the love!

 
dogs, designer dogs, yorkipoo, yorkie poo, pets, blog, photography, floor, wood floor, phobias

 

Every dog is unique, with their own quirks. One of Sadie’s most frustrating quirks is her occasional flooring phobia. Like most dogs, Sadie prefers carpeting. It gives good traction for the paws and it’s mostly soft and cozy. Unfortunately I have allergy issues and can’t have carpeting in my home. So almost a year ago my house was renovated. During that process, Sadie supervised while my family and I installed new bamboo flooring. She absolutely refused to walk on the wooden subfloor and would only walk from one room to another if we put down and trail of cardboard for her to follow. But once we started putting the bamboo down, Sadie would walk on the new sections of bamboo and then stop if she got to a part we hadn’t installed yet. I was extremely happy with this behavior from Sadie, because I was worried that she would hate the bamboo like she hated the wooden subfloor. Fast forward a couple of months and Sadie and I have moved back into the house with its new bamboo floors. We are both very happy and Sadie is having a blast running around and exploring every inch of her new territory. Then one afternoon I hear her crying outside my bedroom door. My door isn’t closed, so I’m not sure what is wrong. It looks like she wants to go into the bedroom, but can’t. She is just unwilling to cross from the hallway throw rug to the area rug in my bedroom. I discover that if I stand behind her, she goes into the room. This same issue happens when she wants to go into the guest bedroom. A few hours later she is running around from room to room, having completely forgotten that she was scared a few hours before. Over the months since the renovation was complete I’ve noticed that she becomes afraid of the floor in varying parts of the house and seemingly random times. Sometimes she cries from the living room because she is scared to walk from the area rug to the throw rug in the hallway. Sometimes she won’t leave the bedroom and cries until you walk up behind her, giving her the confidence to leave. There is a whole corner of the living room she refuses to step into for no reason that I can see. But throughout all of this she has never had a problem walking from the living room through the kitchen to the bathroom on the other side. Yet this is the biggest stretch of bamboo floor in the house, with no throw rugs of any kind to break it up. I just don’t understand why some areas are perfectly fine to walk through, some areas are occasionally scary, and some areas can’t be walked on at all, when they are all made out of the same material. Because this problem occurs so randomly, where an area is fine one minute and scary the next, the usual methods of desensitizing her don’t work. I’ll walk her around on a leash through all the problem areas and she’ll be fine. I’ll think the problem is solved, and then a week later she’ll be crying at the doorway again. Then the day after that she’ll be fine again, and so the cycle continues. I’ve since tried to optimize my home to eliminate these episodes of fear as much as possible. I make sure a throw rug stretches through each doorway. And no matter what room she is in, there is always some small throw rug in sight that she can scurry to if she feels the need to get off the floor. Now Sadie only relapses once every two or three months, instead of every two or three weeks. I’m very happy with this progress and we continue to work to make sure Sadie is a very healthy, happy, well-adjusted Yorkipoo.

This post is part of the #WoofSupport Blog Hop.

 


Thanks for liking us! Sadie and I really appreciate all the love!

10 comments

  1. I can so relate to that. Roxy does not like hard floors. She was fine on our wood floors when we had our house, and finally got used to the vinyl in the RV, but some hard floors she will not walk on. So weird.

  2. I remember my sister had this problem with her dog when they put in new laminate flooring. I think they solved it the same way you did, with throw rugs. It certainly is difficult to understand when it’s off and on, and the same flooring but different places.
    I wonder if it is because she slips on the bamboo flooring, and that scares her? Our old beagle was having trouble getting traction on our wood floors, and we used to put little booties on him (like slipper socks) and that really helped him.
    Thanks for joining the hop!

  3. Hmm, that does sound like a tricky problem. Although the image is cute, both of her running around on the floors, and whimpering when she can’t get across it. Poor Sadie!

    Leo is afraid of bridges. He practically skids to a halt like a cartoon character if we try to cross one.

  4. Poor Sadie! I have never had an experience with this type of fear in dogs so I don’t even know what to say that may help. How odd that it is only certain places in the house and that the one place with no rugs she is fine with. I am glad it doesn’t happen as often anymore.
    Thank you for joining our hop this month!
    Gina and Oz

  5. What a cutie. You know it’s not very often that I hear about dogs having issues walking on hardwood floors. On the other hand, I have many customers that call me about their dogs having challenges with wood steps, and the easy solution is a carpet runner. In fact, the most common request for carpet runners is to help our 4 legged friends.

    BTW, if you want to explore area rugs for your dog, you may consider either wool or sisal as those are both natural fibers and may work for both of you. Hope that helps.
    Debbie Gartner aka The Flooring Girl recently posted…3 big pieces of advice for New Home buyers planning to renovateMy Profile

  6. Oh, very poor Sadie. With any luck ,, she’s going to get over what ever will be spooking the woman since it would seem big t end up being getting better.

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