Animals and furniture

Are your pets allowed on the sofa? The bed?
Our cats used our fancy sofas as scratching posts, so no judgment from me.
When my kid’s dog came to visit we said no dogs on the sofa. He and his wife are on vacation and we are watching the pets.
Sent a pic of the dog on the sofa. Son reminded me of the “rule.”
How does this work in your house?

We have cats and they are allowed on the sofa and the bed. D1 and her fiance have 2 dogs and a cat which are allowed on their furniture. When her dogs visit our house they know to keep them off of our furniture.

Get a Chom Chom. It’s the best thing ever for shedding pets. We have a cat who goes everywhere…has anyone here had success keeping a cat off of anything? If so, please share how!

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Our cats are allowed everywhere except the kitchen counters. It is a losing game otherwise, so we picked one battle we are willing to fight. :laughing: We keep a basket of citrus and a slice of lemon on the counter… the one cat that is still a jumper doesn’t want to come near citrus. :laughing:

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We have cats and they go wherever. We’ve given up on having nice furniture until they have gone.

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Plus one to Chom Chom! That and a handy Dyson stick!

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We’ve had dogs since 1988 and are one our 3rd pair of dogs. We allow them on the sofa/chair, but have dog furniture protectors from Orvis on them.

We also have one our bed because they sleep there too.

Our previous two dogs were not allowed on the furniture - we used to place my now grown son’s toy light sabres on the sofa to keep them off!

Not sure what changed over the years!

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Our two dogs go anywhere they want.

One is very tiny (7 pounds), the other is 40 lbs of furry love.

We were those people who couldn’t believe that dog owners allowed their pets in bed or on couches….and then we adopted our little toy poodle and voila- she became the princess of our household.

Our future dogs followed suit. :heart:

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We’ve provided a gazillion of scratch posts and boards for our small cat herd. Some of them love the vertical surfaces, others prefer horizontal ones. The cat that used to rip the heck out of carpets loved a cardboard scratcher shaped like a sports car… no more claws into the carpet! So far, 15 years and counting with no furniture damage…

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We had two beagles and gave up trying to keep them off of the furniture/out of the bed.

When we dog sit for D and SIL’s dog (beagle) he sits on the sofa and sleeps in the bed with us.
We bought new furniture when we moved here just under 2 years ago. Made sure the upholstery was kid/dog friendly.

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I don’t have a general rule about furniture for my dog. I instead restrict specific locations, if those locations are problematic. For example, she used to scratch, dig, or do something that was damaging my theater sofa, so I put a towel down over a seat in the corner, and she rests on that towel seat when I am watching something in the theater. She has her seat, and I have mine.

She is also not supposed to sit in my living room recliner, but she can sit in other seats. I say “supposed to” because when my parents visited, they told me, she regularly went on my recliner when I was out of the room. For all practical purposes, she doesn’t shed, so it’s difficult to know if she has been in seating when I am out.

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Our dog is allowed everywhere, but has never slept with us. My first dog used to sleep with me/us, I didn’t make that mistake with our current 13 year dog, she will only come in if I’m in there even though the door is open. Never even had kids in our bed.

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We have a big sheddy dog- not allowed on furniture but I do have a blanket on the foot of my bed that he sometimes naps on.

Our dog wasn’t allowed on the furniture. S and GF have a medium dog they allow everywhere. So when they visit, I use old sheets to cover the furniture, and their guest linens are only used for them (along with a different mattress encasement). They were apologetic but once a dog thinks she belongs everywhere, it’s fruitless to try and stop that

We have a dog and he’s only allowed on the family room couch and “his chair” in the entry. He has blankets on both that are also “his”. When we travel with him, we have to bring one of his blankets or he won’t sit on a couch/chair even if invited.

Thankfully our dog allows me to join her on the bed.

And she is great at sharing space when I work remotely.

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No pets (dogs) on the furniture, including the bed. Most of my family would’ve been fine with it but I was firm with that rule.

As our dog started to have incontinence issues, my family saw my/mom’s wisdom. It would’ve been sad to deny him access if it had always been granted. That said our dog had a very high quality dog bed that we moved around the house so he could be near us and comfortable.

Our dogs are allowed everywhere. They are older now and no longer jump on most of the furniture. But one dog has completely taken over one piece of furniture as her bed. Totally ok with me.

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We’ve had a number of cats through the years, and we’ve always let them go anywhere except the counters. We always raised them from kittens. They never scratched the furniture or carpet. This time, my soft hearted H wanted older rescues. Holy heck. We have a variety of scratching posts around the house. They leave the 12 year old family room furniture alone, but as soon as we bought new living room furniture, they started scratching that furniture. I gave up … I now cover the living room furniture unless non-family comes over (the cats disappear into the basement when someone comes over). I love the sofa, and I often uncover it to read & drink tea - the cats will come sit with me & don’t scratch if I’m there. One cat scratches the bejeezus out of the steps, even though we’ve tried all kinds of things to stop her. I’m resigned to the fact that this is my life.

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Our dog has her dog couch. It’s leather so easy to wipe off. Once upon a time it was a people couch but the dog before this dog also used it as a couch. She’s a pretty big dog, 57 lbs at her last weigh in, and she can stretch out to take up the whole 6 foot couch. There’s another couch in the same room that she is not allowed on. She knows the difference and always obeys if we are home. We have seen her get on the people couch on the doggy cam when we are not home, though. She is not allowed in the bedroom because the cats are and they need some safe space from her since she can be a little chase-y toward the cats. The cats are allowed everywhere except the island and the counters in the kitchen. They sleep with us in the bed most nights. One of them is great about using cat scratchers and the other likes to scratch wood like table legs and chair rockers.

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