Pet Friendly Features in New Homes

New homes have something for everyone, including our pets. According to Forbes, 66% of American households include a pet – that’s 86.9 million homes! So whether you’re a new family, an empty nester, a single homebuyer, or a homebuyer at any other life stage, you probably have a pet that is an important part of your life.

Fortunately, new construction homes are full of pet-friendly features that make life easier and more fun for the entire family. Whether it’s raining cats and dogs in your life, you have a bird that thinks its a lap dog, you have an aquatic setup that would make the National Aquarium jealous, or you have turtles, snakes, or other reptiles that deserve a room all their own, all members of the animal kingdom can love life in new homes.

New Homes Make Bathing Pets Easier

Any pet owner knows, the one thing our furbabies can’t do is control how smelly they are. A romp in the yard on a hot summer day can leave your whole home smelling less-than-fresh. But hauling your pet to the groomer’s every week can be time-consuming, expensive, and stressful for you and your pets. And as it turns out, not every good boy or cute kitty likes getting washed (who knew?), so bathing at home might not sound like a good solution – unless you make it one.

Luckily, new homes at all price points have great features that make bath time less stressful for your animals, while reducing the amount of times you get scratched or pull your back trying to haul a large pet into a tub.

Built-In Pet Washing Stations

Pet-washing stations have many benefits:

• Convenience: Wash your pets at home without traveling to a grooming salon. If your pets have a penchant for getting stinky, this could be a game-changer for you wallet, your car, and your weekends.
• Cost savings: When you can do pet bath maintenance at home, you don’t have to spend as much money on professional grooming.
• Comfort for your pets: Pet washing stations can help reduce stress at bath time because you aren’t washing your animal in an enclosed space full of strange sounds. Larger dogs don’t have to get wrangled into a bathtub, reducing slip risks, and making bath time safer for everyone. Older pets can use a ramp to easily walk into an elevated tub, minimizing risk of carrying them over your standard bathtub.
• Reduced mess: You can contain the water, fur, mud, and soap in your mudroom or, even better, in your garage, where you can hose everything down after bath time. No more scrubbing your bathroom after you’re done bathing the dog – why do two chores when you could just do the one?
• Comfort for you: With an elevated pet bath, you don’t have to kill you back and knees to wash your pet in your bathtub. Add a ramp to the tub to reduce stress on your animal and injury to you from loading a large pet.

You don’t have to build a custom house or do major renovations to have a pet washing station in your new home. Many new home builders offer built-in pet washing stations in the garage or laundry room as an upgrade for their home plans. If your builder gives you an upgrade option, you may be able to install fantastic feature without increasing your mortgage.

Walk-In Showers

Ok, you don’t want to spend your upgrade budget on Fido, or your builder doesn’t offer that particular option. Fear not! Your home plan can still make bath time safer and less stressful for you and your pets.

Almost all builders offer walk-in showers in their master bathrooms, giving you the perfect pet washing stall. When bath time rears its ugly head, all you have to do is herd your animal into the shower. No pulling your back trying to get a non-compliant large dog over the rim of a bath tub. No more injuries from stress scratches from your usually lovely cat as you try and keep them from leaping out of a tub or sink. A walk-in shower with a sliding door keeps your pet (and their hair…and mud…and water) contained. Add in a built-in seat for you and voila – a great option for washing your pets that still works for your everyday life.

And after you get your cat into the walk in shower, be sure to tell everyone you know that you have indeed herded cats. If you follow it up with videos of your cat, that joke will never get old.

Hand-Held Shower Heads

Your brand-new bathroom has other features that make bath time easier. Once you’ve gotten your pet into a walk-in shower, a detachable shower head can make bath time even less stressful for everyone involved.

Like small children, animals don’t like it when their parents get soap in their eyes. A hand-held shower head lets you completely control where the water goes, ensuring that an anxious animal doesn’t make the situation more scary by panicking and getting water up a nose or in the eyes. Tip: opt for an extra-long hose so you can reach under your pet without (unsafely) lifting them.

If water falling from above on causes your pet to freak out, you can set the shower head on the floor and turn on the water before you get the animal in the shower. All your pet will hear is a water flowing gently down the drain, and as you get into the shower, they won’t see strange rain falling down from the sky.

Pet-friendly Features for W-A-L-K Time

Going for a walk is one of the best parts of the day for a dog. That’s why so many dog owners have had to come up with crazy ways to avoid saying the w-a-l-k word. Fortunately, your new home has a number of features that make going for a W-word less chaotic.

Mudrooms

A mudroom is the real MVP when it comes time to bring Fido back home after a walk. Your new home’s mudroom gives you a limited space where you can clean muddy paws, remove burrs from fur, and generally manage any mess your pooch may have made before giving him access to the rest of your house.

No pet owner has ever said, “Wow, I love scrubbing muddy paw prints off my super nice couch.” Limiting what your dog tracks in after a walk (and where they track it) makes owning your dog way more enjoyable and less stressful.

If your mudroom has the handy pet bath, you can even give those paws a quick rinse before heading into the rest of the house.

Plenty of Storage

Because mudrooms are a drop zone for a family coming into and out of a home, your will have great storage for everything you need to take your dog o-u-t. Instead of having a chaotic jumble by the front door, you can hang leashes on pretty hooks, store travel water bottles in their own cubby, and (hopefully) hide reward treats from your dog on high shelving. And you, again, get the added benefit of keeping smelly dog items separate from the rest of your home – leashes, harnesses, bandanas, and sweaters can get ripe fast!

Even if your home plan doesn’t include a mudroom, you can work with your builder to install built-in shelving or a built-in storage bench in your foyer to mimic the benefits of a mudroom, while still maximizing the space of your layout.

Pet-friendly Features for Feeding Times

Many pets are foodies at heart. The lengths some animals go to sneak a treat often reaches toddler levels. Seeing a dog turn into a cat food bandit is funny on YouTube, but not so funny when your dog gets sick and you need to buy a whole new bag of cat food.

When you build a new home, you have a great opportunity to design your storage so you can safely store pet food and treats, and hopefully ensure that your furry family members get correctly portioned meals that are safe for them to eat.

Butlers’ Pantries

Unless you have a pet octopus, the door knob on a butler’s pantry can stop even the most determined treat thief. In the promised land that is the butler’s pantry, you can store food and treats in a safe environment where you don’t have to worry about countertop pirates having a feast. (Bonus: it keeps treats out of sight and hands of toddlers and guests alike who might not know when to stop handing out the treats!)

If you have animals that need to be fed separately, you can set up a feeding station in the butler’s pantry to ensure your pet with eternal munchies isn’t chowing down on their sibling’s food.

Built-in Pet Feeding Stations

Ask your builder if they can incorporate a built-in pet feeding station in your mudroom or kitchen. You can include a built-in nook in your mudroom, kitchen, or even within your kitchen island to secure your pet’s bowls. It keeps them off the ground and prevents your eager pet from sliding them around the kitchen as they chow down. If you build it into an island that already includes your sink, you may even be able to include a pasta-arm-like spigot to easily fill your pet’s water dish.

Pet-friendly Features in Living Spaces

Cleaning up pet mess is part of being a pet owner. (Unless you’re Dr. Evil, then your cat won’t shed and Scott can clean the litter box.) For everyone else, managing pet hair, potty training, claws, and accidents comes with the territory of loving animals.

Pet Friendly Flooring

Pet friendly flooring is one of the biggest factors determining if a pet owner can keep their space looking nice and clean. No matter how hypoallergenic your pet is and how frequently you steam clean, pets and carpet don’t play nice. When you build your new home, you have a fantastic option to choose flooring that looks beautiful and stays lovely for years to come.

Porcelain Tile

Porcelain tile can handle anything life throws its way, short of a jackhammer, and is more than a match for pet hair, food, fluids, and claws. Porcelain tile is easy to vacuum and scrub, perfect for shed pet hair and other mess, and can handle heavy duty cleaning solutions better than ceramic tile or vinyl flooring. Because porcelain tile is the hardest flooring option, it is less likely to scratch when an excited animal runs around the house, ensuring that your home stays looking nice.

Unfortunately, because porcelain tile is the best flooring, it is the most expensive. It is also more difficult to install, so some builders might not offer it as an upgrade option. If you and your pets want to live in a home that is easy to clean, and scratched tile bothers you, look for a builder that offers porcelain as a flooring option, and prioritize your upgrade budget to pay for the floors.

Ceramic Tile

Ceramic tile is a beautiful and easy-to-clean flooring option that gives you many of the benefits of porcelain tile at a lower initial cost. Ceramic tile is easy to install, so you don’t have to worry about a builder you love not offering it as an option, either.

For pet owners, the only downside of ceramic tile is that it scratches much more easily than porcelain tile. If you have excitable dogs, this could cause the home to look poorly maintained over the course of your life in the home.

That being said, many dog owners have kept their ceramic tile looking nice, and staying within the budget for your new home is more important than installing gold tier flooring. If you own small dogs, calm dogs, or cats, not having your heart set on porcelain tile can help you save money on your mortgage, while still providing you with a pet-friendly flooring option.

High-Quality Vinyl

High-quality vinyl flooring is often touted in apartment complexes as a pet friendly offering, but NewHomeSource is going to bust this myth.

Because quality vinyl flooring isn’t fiber like carpet, it is very easy to clean, making living with a pet less of a disaster. Vinyl flooring is relativity scratch-resistant if you have a calm dog, or a cat that doesn’t scratch. A large dog that runs in the house or a cat that still has claws will eventually end up scratching the flooring.

In addition to scratched flooring, anxious pets often tear up vinyl flooring. Even a small dog that has separation or other anxiety issues can strip vinyl flooring to the subfloor. If having a nice looking house while having pets is important to you, try to avoid vinyl floors. Even though vinyl flooring is affordable and easy to clean, it isn’t very pet friendly and will cost you money and stress over the lifetime of your pet and home.

Open Concept House Plans

New homes almost always feature an open concept floor plan. Open concept homes are great for keeping fur babies (and human babies) safe and away from potential messes.

If you want a new kitten or puppy, or you want to rehome an adopted pet, you will have to potty train the animal. Having an open concept living space means you can keep an eye on your pet from any point in the main living areas, and spot warning signs for accident before any pee related disasters occur.

Your open concept vantage point can also help you keep an eye on pets that try and escape into no-go zones of the home. Speaking of, with open floor plans, you can comfortably let your pets roam a bigger area of the house and simply close off bedrooms, bathrooms, game rooms, and the like.

Want to go luxury? Consider turning the area under your stairs into a full-blown pet room! Ask your builder about turning that otherwise-unused space into an oasis for your pet by installing a door with a gate, a platform for a pet bed, a pet dish area, shelving for pet supplies, and even a light for your pooch or kitty!

A Yard That’s Safe and Fun for Pets

A Fenced-In Backyard

Most people don’t think about backyard benefits when buying a new home, but having an outdoor space for your pet can help you keep the rest of the house clean.

Pets that love spending time outdoors can be chillin’ like a villain on your patio pad instead of anxiously shedding on your couch because they really want to go for a walk. A fenced-in backyard gives your animals a way to entertain themselves, instead of getting into trouble and potentially breaking things inside.

If your pets like outdoor time, and you have safe weather and a water source (note those three conditionals!), you can even leave them in your yard when you leave the house for short periods (NewHomeSource does not recommend leaving pets unsupervised in the yard too long). Letting pets get outdoor time when you’re away can reduce anxiety from being crated, keep your pet from having accidents in the house, and reduce in-house shedding.

For pets that don’t use a litter box, being able to let them out a backdoor to do their business is a lot easier than having to leash up every few hours when they need to do their business, or setting up an indoor pee station. You will have fewer messes to clean up, and your house will smell better because of it.

Pet-safe Landscaping

Your yard should be a safe, peaceful oasis for you and your family – and that includes the four-legged members! As you choose your plants and features for your yard, consider how you can keep it safe for your pets.

• Plant selection: Research which plant species are toxic to pets – such as lilies, azaleas, oleanders, or sago palms – and opt instead for pet-friendly plants, such as marigolds, sunflowers, and certain herbs. You might even choose plants that are natural mosquito repellants, as mosquitos are a known source of heartworms in dogs. Mosquito-repelling plants that are safe for dogs and cats include lemon balm, lavender, basil, rosemary, peppermint, and sage. Have a kitty-only yard? Consider planting catnip!
• Ground cover: Use pet-safe mulch options, such as cedar or pine, and choose hardy ground covers that can withstand heavy use and digging
• Shade and shelter: Use trees, pergolas, or shade sails to protect your pets from the heat and sun (and rain!).
• Pathways and surfaces: Use nontoxic materials for pathways, such as stone or brick. Avoid materials that can overheat or irritate paw pads. Choose slip-resistant surfaces on decks and patios.
• Lighting: Add ample lighting and/or motion-activated lighting to keep your pets safe after dark.
• Garden beds: Use raised garden beds to keep plants out of reach of curious pets, and consider fencing off the garden area.
• Compost: Opt for secured, covered compost bins to prevent pets from accessing the contents.

Luxury Yard Pet Features

If you’re ready to build the custom forever home of your dreams, go all in and add a small in-ground splash pool for your pets! You can install a small, shallow pool that gives your furbaby a place to cool off all summer long without getting the pool you swim in full of hair, mud, or other animal debris. And remember, if you do have a deeper pool, invest in a cover or fence to prevent any accidents.

Other luxury pet yard features might include built-in pet bed areas on your patio, pet agility equipment, a built-in pet waste system, or a dog-height window in your fence.

Designing a Pet-friendly Home for Caged Animals

Dogs and cats aren’t the only animals people keep as pets. When you build a new home, you can work with your builder to come up with the right solutions for caged pets, instead of trying to cram their cages, aquariums, and additional electrical needs into a pre-existing and unsafe space.

Small Mammals

Bunnies, and guinea pigs, and chinchillas, oh my! Small rodents are great pets for people who want a cuddly pet that won’t scratch your house up or need to go on frequent walks.

If you have rodents, ask your builder about designing cabinetry that can safely house their cages. Building new gives you the perfect chance to install smart shelving solutions to give your little friends a beautiful and safe home-within-a-home.

Reptiles

Because reptiles are cold blooded, they have very different needs than mammals. If you have, or plan on having, a reptile room in your new home, you need to work with your builder to ensure it is safe for the animal, and the additional electrical needs don’t present a fire hazard.

Reptile terrariums are very heavy, and built-in Ikea cabinets in a used home just aren’t going to be safe. The first thing you need to talk with your builder about is how to build heavy-duty shelving for their living space.

Once your builder shows they can give you a structurally sound living space for your reptiles, you need to ensure that their heat lamps and other electrical gear won’t become a fire hazard. Talk with your builder about heat lamp lighting plans, and ways you can avoid overloading your outlets with your pet gear, such as adding additional outlets in the room.

Aquarium Animals

Fish and amphibians have more needs than mammalian pets, yet have different and additional needs than reptiles. You will have to work with your builder to see about managing the electrical needs from your aquarium pumps, and how you can manage water needs for keeping your animals submerged without risking leaks. Ask about installing GFCI outlets in the room, the same as you would in a bathroom, and/or leak detection technology.

Aquariums with water are the heaviest pet cages that need to be installed on a shelf or counter. To manage the weight requirements of an aquarium, work with your builder to install shelving that can literally handle the pressure.

Where you put your aquarium can determine if your fish or amphibian survive. A new home’s flex room can become the perfect space for your pets, sheltered from direct sunlight and the hustle and bustle of the rest of the home.

Pet-friendly New Home Communities

New home communities are great for dog owners. Walkable neighborhoods are the perfect environment for dog walks, and a safe community means that human children can learn about responsibility by taking over this chore.

New home communities often have pet friendly amenities like walking trails, paw parks, and dog friendly green spaces. These fabulous pet friendly communities help make life easier for dog owners, life better for their dogs, and generally more joyful for everyone.

At NewHomeSource, we know that often, your pets are just as special to you as any other member of your family. We’re here to help with all your pet home needs, from yard safety to design!