For a comfortable life for a dog in an apartment, you should provide some things.
The First Moment: The puppy, and where he will be while you are not at home. Do not think that your baby is special – and he will not gnaw your furniture and shoes, will admire your wallpaper, and pee only on the place you prepared for him. Therefore, you need to decide which part of the apartment you are ready to give up or not.
There are several options here. You can give the animal a whole room or corridor, as some owners do, but not everyone can afford it. You can also build an aviary in some room – this means that the floor must be covered – for example, with a piece of linoleum, and there must be a structure on it, such as a fence, which does not fall when the dog jumps on it, well, and high enough to do not climb over or jump over.
And the last and, in my opinion, the best option is a cage, naturally, the size of the dog. It is necessary to train the dog to the cage from the first days, because an adult dog, put in a cage, will suddenly howl and in every possible way try to get out of it. You can read more about cages on the internet to dispel the myth of violence against a dog. So: you need a place in the apartment to keep the dog when you cannot control it.
Second Moment: Washing the paws and washing the whole animal. It is very good to make a shower place in the bathroom or one of the bathrooms – a shower with a drain into the floor or a pallet. This shower area should be limited by glass or partitions as dogs have a habit of shaking themselves off. If you are making a bathing compartment especially for a dog, raise the tray higher to make it more convenient for you.
And for everyday washing of paws, if the dog is large enough, you can use a hygienic shower and toilet. Place the dog’s paws one by one over the toilet – rinsing them with a shower. This procedure is suitable for dogs over 50 cm at the withers. So: think over the washing of the animal.
The Third Moment: The place of feeding and drinking. Everything is simpler here – it is desirable that it is not on the aisle so that people passing by do not stumble over the bowls. If the dog eats dry food, then everything will be clean, if the dog eats natural food, it would be good if the surfaces around the bowl are easy to wash.
You can also integrate bowls into furniture. It must be remembered that water should always be available to the dog. Dry food is usually in 15-25 kg bags and needs to be stored somewhere so that the dog cannot reach it.
The Fourth Moment: Dog barking. Not all people love dogs – this is a fact, and not even all dog’ owners want to listen to barking. Living in an apartment building imposes some kind of responsibility, unless, of course, you want to quarrel with all the neighbors.
Ways to eliminate barking: train your dog not to bark or howl, and some breeds don’t bark, by the way. If yours is not one of those, then sound insulation of walls, floor and ceiling will help you, sound insulation is generally a cool thing, it eats up a place, but gives complete peace. And you need a good front door that protects the corridor from barking and let the dog sleep well from additional sounds coming from all over the building.
Features of the Selection of Finishing Materials Resistant to the Presence of an Animal or Animals
I am considering those materials that are in the access of the dog, namely: flooring, the lower part of the walls – from the floor to a height of 1200 mm – this is for jumping and large dogs, and there are also textiles.
All materials must be:
- With the most smooth surface – it is very difficult to wash and clean the embossed tiles, as well as the stucco decoration on the walls
- All surfaces must be easy to clean and resistant to aggressive detergents and disinfectants.
Of course, the most ideal option is to cover the entire apartment with large-format ceramics, sheets of material 3 by 1 meter, and it is thin – 3 mm, this is not cheap – but this is really a dream – for the corridor and the kitchen for sure! In general, ceramic tiles with a minimum of seams are the best solution.
Textiles for animals should also be selected special: resistant to dirt due to special impregnations or resistant to cleaning – this applies to furniture. For curtains, simply find a fabric that can be either machine washable or dry cleaned frequently.
Features of Furniture for Dogs of Different Breeds
To find some furniture that will be good for a home with the dog you can go to nfoutlet.com.
For furniture: cages, places for dogs (beds, chairs, beds, sofas, basins), as well as accessories for feeding.
Everything obeys three parameters: comfortable for the dog, suitable for cleaning and washing, the third – aesthetic appearance – for me personally, this is important.
What is being sold should be checked immediately for cleaning. All covers must be removable and washable, if the cover is not removable, then the bed must fit into the washing machine entirely. And for large breeds of dogs, it is sometimes easier and cheaper to buy a chair or a sofa than to look specifically for animals – again – the cover must be removable, you can order 2 covers at once so that there is always one to replace.
It is advisable to purchase a place for a dog so that the dog can lie down and sit in it; when sitting, the animal should lean on the sides of the bed, and not on nearby furniture or walls.
Beautiful booths can be made to order, sometimes integrated into human furniture, all internal parts, of course, must be removable and washable.
The cages can also be turned into a house, they can be easily decorated with covers or integrated into furniture – after that, they look organic in the interior. In some interior styles, such as industrial or loft, an ordinary cage can become an art object, and you can already pick up additional accessories for it.
Dog feeding places are also part of the furniture, we can suggest also – custom made or integrated into regular furniture.
Some details that you don’t know until you get along with the Dog
This is perhaps the most interesting section because it is impossible to predict what your dog will do, I will tell you only about what I saw with my own eyes and heard from the dog’s owners.
Well, I have a dog that Loves to Eat, what does that mean? It means:
- First, all food, any, must be so that the dog cannot reach it, either high or securely closed
- Second – food waste must be securely closed – in a bucket and in a cabinet! I know of a case when a dog lost a tooth, which got stuck in the structure of a trash can, but she nevertheless opened the bucket and artistically spread the skeletons of salted herring on the sofa.
- Further – the dogs open doors and wardrobes, in wardrobes they sometimes lie down to sleep in our favorite clothes and suede shoes.
It is advisable to purchase interior doors with magnetic locks – in such doors, the design implies pressing the handle and pushing in the direction of opening – it is difficult for animals, especially untrained, to perform such actions at the same time. With an ordinary lock – pressing the handle immediately opens the door, that is, pressed it with a paw – and hello to your clean bed.
Furniture doors, both hinged and sliding, must be securely closed – check the mechanisms at the time of purchase! I already wrote about the fact that surfaces should be resistant to stress and easy to clean – this also applies to doors and furniture.
And now about the curtains, or rather about their fastening! Fastening curtains to cornices and cornices to ceilings or walls should be very strong! Not only do puppies sometimes use curtains and curtain hooks in play as a tug rope.
And my dog moves its place to the tulle, and then begins to wrap itself in it, as a result, it lies contentedly inside the tulle tent and depicts an oriental princess. The first time I watched all this with horror, then I thought – the cornice is fixed to a zero concrete ceiling with 8 self-tapping screws – it will stand exactly.