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By MEREDITH GOAD, Portland Press Herald Staff Writer Sunday, April 8, 2007

Barbara Wilkinson had hardwood throughout most of her home, but the nice-looking floor wasn't exactly compatible with her pets.

Her two large dogs, an English pointer and a hound mix, scratched it every time they ran inside.

"Even if you keep their nails pretty short, they're going to at least scratch up the varnish on top and make it look really dull," said Wilkinson, who works as an educator at the Animal Welfare Society in West Kennebunk.

Carpeting was out.

"Cats and dogs, especially dogs, are going to make carpets disgusting," she said. "You're going to have to steam clean it all the time."

Wilkinson went with Pergo flooring instead. It was expensive, so she tried installing it in part of her house. It can't be scratched, and it's not absorbent, so she doesn't have to worry about little "accidents" or water getting tracked in on messy paws.

"It's slippery," she said. "Some dogs don't like slippery floors, period. But my dogs are OK with it. If they come in running at full speed from the yard, sometimes they'll slide around a little bit, but they'll end up being OK."

Wilkinson is one of a growing number of pet owners taking their companion animals into account when making home improvements, or even when redecorating. From scratch-resistant flooring and pet-friendly fabrics to designer doggie beds and chic scratching posts for cats, just because you share your home with a messy animal doesn't mean your home can't be stylish.

Pet product manufacturers "are taking things that are important for your animal to have for their happiness and well-being, like scratching posts, and making them an attractive part of the home, so it's not something you have to keep in the basement, which is great for your pet," said Stephanie Shain, director of outreach for The Human Society of the United States.

"If everybody's upstairs all the time, your cat doesn't want to go downstairs to the basement to use a scratching post," she said.

There's a huge market to be tapped. The American Pet Products Manufacturers Association estimates that Americans will spend more than $40 billion on their pets this year.

Many of those consumers are looking for good design that happens to be pet friendly, said Julia Szabo, pet columnist for the New York Post and author of "Animal House Style: Designing a Home to Share With Your Pets" (Bulfinch $19.95).

That means no doggie beds with a paw-print motif.

"How icky, how tacky, how yucky," said Szabo, who shares her home with six large dogs and six cats. " Let's bring back some of the aesthetic while keeping in mind the needs of the animals."

Among the companies offering something a little more stylish, Szabo notes, is Michigan-based Crypton Super Fabrics, which manufactures engineered fabrics that are resistant to water, stains and even bacteria. Crypton enlisted architect Michael Graves and photographer William Wegman to design more stylish pet beds from its products.

The result? Round and rectangular dog beds from Graves in toile, herringbone and suede, in colors like "espresso," "lipstick" and "champagne."

Wegman created designs such as "Hound in the Round," beds that feature the silhouettes of his beloved Weimaraners in colors such as "saffron," "pistachio" and "lapis."

The company has even come up with a chair for dogs, for those pet owners who are tired of scooting Fido out of their favorite recliner every night.

A North Carolina company called Fatboy makes sleek, tailored, stain-resistant bean bags for humans, but also has separate lines, with bright colors, for dogs and cats.

REINVENTING THE SCRATCHING POST

Even something as functional as the cat-scratching post can have high style, too.

"It's no longer sort of the plain, carpeted cat climber," Shain said. "We see things that look like trees. There are products that you can buy that actually attach to the wall that look like shelving that your cat can climb up."

San Francisco-based Everyday Studio has designed scratching posts, including a wall-mounted one, that come in "cool, abstract geometric shapes," Szabo said.

The company also manufactures a freestanding, clear acrylic food dish with a stainless bowl for "the minimalist mutt."

"It's about being a creative shopper," Szabo said. "You have to apply that same skill set to shopping for pets."

For pet owners with money to burn, a Portland, Ore., company called Kattbank handcrafts benches designed to hide the litter box and look like any other high-end piece of furniture. The cat accesses the litter box through an opening on the side of the bench. Vents provide air for the cat and help control odor. And a plastic grid removes litter from the cat's paws before it exits the bench.

The benches cost upwards of $2,000, but Szabo notes that cats can live for 15 years or more, rivaling the lifespan of an expensive piece of furniture.

Kattbank also offers a $1,600 cat bed made of hand-blown glass on a walnut stand and a $2,400 hand-blown glass cat house.

PRESERVING THE FURNITURE

If you don't have that kind of money to spend, there are also options for homeowners who just want to preserve the furniture they have now from dog drool and razor-sharp cat claws. Katie Lisnik, who also works for the Animal Welfare Society here in Maine, uses a product called "Soft Paws" on her three cats. These little plastic caps come in different colors and are glued on over the cat's toenails.

"They can't actually puncture anything," Lisnik said. "They can still act like they're digging and still stretch their tendons, but nothing damages the furniture."

Lisnik said one of her cats chews them off, but the other two like them.

She also uses a product called "Sticky Paws," sheets of double-sided tape that can be placed over furniture to train a cat not to scratch there.

"If I notice that they're starting to scratch a little area on a piece of furniture, I'll put one of those right there," Lisnik said. "The next time they go to touch it, their foot sticks and they don't like it. They avoid that area, and then a month later I'll take off that piece of tape and they won't go back there because they associate that spot with stickiness. Those, I've found, have been very helpful in keeping the cats from digging furniture. We definitely don't endorse declawing because it is cutting off their toes, so we promote these other alternative things to try."

Shain said toys can also help keep a dog or cat busy while pet owners are away so the animals won't be tempted to get into mischief.

"Toys are important," she said. "They're not sort of a silly luxury. They should be looked at as a necessity and something that you need to provide to prevent things from happening."

Durable floor coverings made of sisal or seagrass can help keep floors from getting scratched. But Barbara Wilkinson, who went with Pergo for her floors, said no pet owner should expect to have an animal in the house and sustain no damage at all.

"If people bring home a dog or a cat -- especially a dog because they're pretty big animals -- if they have the expectation that their house isn't going to be damaged in any way, they're going to be pretty upset," Wilkinson said. "Even when you dog-proof or cat-proof, they still will leave some damage somewhere. You have to make the decision that the dogs are worth it."

Still, having new options in pet products and stylish designs could encourage more people who are afraid of a mess to adopt a pet, and help keep more animals out of shelters, Szabo said.

And that, she said, is the ultimate goal.

"A beautiful shelter pet makes a house a home," she said.

Staff Writer Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at: