Dogs v kids . . . which is more ruinous?
If you have canines or small children, or both, you can’t have nice things, writes Shabnam Dastgheib.
Two little people live in my house. They are the painters of walls, the smearers of Marmite and the breakers of windows.
They have peed on our couches, vomited on our carpets and pooped on our rugs.
Their tiny little fingers have pushed in our speakers, pushed over our pot plants and raced their Hot Wheels cars all over the walls. Little scratches mark where the car races have started and stopped.
They use the walls and furniture to wipe their sticky fingers and, forget about cleaning the windows, because I have.
Our kitchen cabinets have all been swung on to the point that they are hanging just a little bit off their hinges, just enough to look a bit wrong.
And the couches have been used as a trampoline for so long that there are springs sticking up in all the wrong places.
Two dogs live with us too. They scratch the doors, dig on the couch and absolutely annihilate the wooden floors with their claws.
Last week, our 6-year-old mini schnauzer vomited something up on my bedroom carpet, leaving a stain that just won’t budge.
Dogs are pretty bad. The worst issue we have with ours is that they both hate having their nails clipped, which means they scratch up our wooden floors like nothing else.
Get them running through the house at full clip and you can hear the wood being scraped up, as they skid on the corners and fall all over each other. And our dogs are just little terriers, I can’t imagine the damage a labrador could do.
We could just lock them outside, I guess, but that’s no fun and they just scratch up the doors trying to find their way back in.
When they were puppies, the pee stains were a bit of a drag, but they were too small to jump on the furniture then, so at least it was all contained on the floor.
We did have to give away an almost new couch last year after the schnauzer dug all the way through the upholstery in a bid to get comfortable.
And there was the occasional incident with shoe-chewing – wedding shoe-chewing might I add – and one time, the eating of a bathroom cabinet while we were at work.
Now the dogs are older, they seem to have settled down.
But the kids are yet to settle down and when compared to dogs, they are worse. Oh, so much worse.
We have very high-energy, strong-willed and busy children. I’m assuming they are pretty much all like this but, needless to say, we can’t have nice things.
And even though the house is tidy most of the time, it’s always a little bit stickier and beat up than I would like it to be.
When I change the sheets or mop the floors, it takes exactly five minutes before sweaty little bodies are playing hide-and-seek under the duvet, shoes on, of course.
Show even the smallest bit of affection towards an inanimate object and they will find a way to break it, scratch it or smash it, like the time my phone ended up in the toilet.
I used to care about material possessions, but now I’m very Zen about all this. We just have to wait it out and they’ll stop the destruction at some point, right? Or at least they’ll stay in their rooms once they’re a bit older and just break their own stuff.
One can dream.
Top tips for keeping your nice things nice
Freedom Furniture visual manager Elayna Foster said a dose of tender loving care and the right kind of maintenance was essential to help furniture stand up to the various stresses of life.
Wondering what type of couch to buy to give yourself the best chance? Foster said corrected grain leather was the way to go.
‘‘If you’re opting for leather, go for the best quality possible for your budget, or corrected grain leather as this is particularly kidfriendly, so a great option if you have little ones and furry friends running amok,’’ she said.
Foster also recommended side tables and coffee tables where possible, to keep food and drinks off the couches themselves. And if they’re made of timber, they’ll also need regular maintenance to stay looking sharp.
Leather furniture needs to be cleaned and moisturised weekly to maintain its appearance – and more often in more extreme climates, she said.
Dirt, like the kind my kids and dogs bring in on a daily basis, when mixed with body moisture could produce an abrasive grime that would stain and wear away on leather or upholstery so regular cleaning was a must, Foster said.
She also recommended couches with slipcovers that could be removed and cleaned if big accidents occurred.
The kids are yet to settle down and when compared to dogs, they are worse. Oh, so much worse.