A South Sound deck builder on the design decisions homeowners make for their dogs, and the ones they should be making.
Ask a contractor what changed about residential outdoor design in the last decade and you expect to hear about composite decking or outdoor kitchens. Ask Daniel Rotaru and he talks about dogs.
Rotaru founded Decks Restore and has been building and resurfacing decks in Washington for more than twenty years, working out of Federal Way with a second office closer to the water. He says the pet question now comes up on a majority of his estimates, usually late in the conversation and usually phrased as an afterthought, and that it changes more about the design than homeowners realize.
We sat down with him to go through it.
Homeowners Hire You to Build a Deck. When Does the Dog Come Up?
Almost always at the end, and almost always apologetically. Somebody will go through the whole design, pick boards, pick railing, and then say, “oh, and we have a golden, is that going to be a problem?” Like they are embarrassed to ask.
It is not a small question. Half the decisions we just made would have gone differently if I had known at the start.
Which Decisions Would Have Gone Differently?
Railing first. Color second. Traction third, and people never think about traction until somebody gets hurt.
Start With Railing. What Is Wrong With a Standard Guardrail for a Dog?
Nothing is wrong with it. It just was not designed for one.
The guard spacing requirement in the residential code is based on a four inch sphere. The idea is that a small child’s head cannot pass through a gap that size. That is a good rule and it has saved a lot of kids.
But a four inch gap is nothing to a dog. A small terrier goes through that without slowing down. A puppy of almost any breed goes through it. So you can have a railing that is perfectly code compliant and perfectly useless for the animal you actually live with.
So What Do You Use Instead for a Small Dog?
Depends on the dog, which is why I want to know the breed and the age before I quote railing.
For a small dog or a puppy, we usually add a mesh or hardware cloth panel on the inside face of the picket railing. It is not beautiful up close but from ten feet away you do not see it, and it closes the gap completely. Some people do a solid bottom band, maybe eight or ten inches of board along the bottom, and leave the rest open. That works and it looks intentional rather than added on.
For a big dog that is not going to fit through anything anyway, standard picket is fine and you are worrying about a different problem, which is jumping and leaning.
What About Cable Railing? It Is Popular Right Now.
Popular and, for some dogs, the wrong choice.
Cable is tensioned wire, and tensioned wire deflects when something pushes on it. A determined dog leaning into it can spread two cables apart further than the gap you measured on the day it was installed. Cable is also horizontal, which means it is a ladder. Cats climb it. Some dogs climb it.
I still install a lot of cable because on a view lot it disappears and that is the whole point of it. But if somebody has a small dog or a climber, I say so before they pick it.
What About Glass Panels?
Glass solves the gap problem completely. Nothing gets through a glass panel.
The trade is that dogs do not always perceive glass as a barrier, and some of them run into it. And you will be cleaning nose prints for the rest of your life. Every glass railing I have installed for a dog owner has a smear on it at dog height.
You Said Color Second. Why Does Decking Color Matter?
Heat. This is the one I wish more people understood.
Dark composite decking in direct sun gets hot enough that a dog will not walk on it. Their pads are tougher than our feet but they are not armor, and dogs do not always take themselves off a hot surface the way you would expect. They lie down on it because that is where their person is.
We get maybe a handful of properly hot days a year here, which is exactly why nobody plans for it. Then we get a week in August and the dog will not go outside.
If somebody has a dog and they want a dark board, I tell them to at least put a covered section or a shade sail over part of it so there is somewhere cooler to lie down. Lighter boards run noticeably cooler than dark ones in the same product line.
Do Claws Damage Composite Decking?
Less than people fear, and differently than people expect.
Capped composite has a hard outer layer and it holds up well to claws. What marks it is dragging, not puncture. A dog that sprints and turns hard in the same spot will scuff the cap in that spot over time.
Two things help. Embossed grain hides scuffing far better than a smooth surface, because the texture breaks up the light. And lighter colors hide it better than dark ones, for the same reason a black car shows every swirl. So if you are optimizing for a dog, textured and mid tone is the sweet spot, and that happens to be the same answer as the heat question.
Softwood is a different story. Cedar scratches. It is a soft wood, that is why it is nice to walk on, and a big dog will mark it up in the first season. Some people love that and call it patina. Some people are upset about it in month two. You should know which kind of person you are before you pick cedar.
What About the Gaps Between the Boards Themselves?
Small dogs, small nails. A standard gap on a hidden fastener system is around three sixteenths of an inch, and a small dog’s nail can catch in that, particularly on stairs where they are pushing off hard.
It is not common enough that I would redesign a deck around it. But if somebody has a dachshund or a small breed with long nails, I mention it, and I pay extra attention to the stair detail.
Why Do Stairs Come Up So Often With Dogs?
Stairs are where dogs get hurt.
Wet composite is slick. Everything is wet here for eight months. A dog coming down stairs at speed on a wet surface, especially an older dog with bad hips, is the injury I hear about most.
Grooved boards help. A stair tread with a texture or a groove pattern gives them something to grab. For an older dog, a runner on the stairs is not elegant but it works, and I would rather somebody put down an ugly runner than have their fourteen year old lab fall.
Open risers are the other stair issue. A gap between treads with nothing behind it is a place a small dog can get a leg through. Closing the risers costs almost nothing at build time and is annoying to add later.
Are There Problems That Show Up After the Deck Is Built?
Two, and both are maintenance rather than design.
Urine is the first one. On wood it stains and it holds moisture against the board, which is the thing you spend the rest of the deck’s life trying to prevent. On uncapped composite it can stain. On capped composite it mostly rinses off, but it has to actually get rinsed. If a dog uses the same corner every day and nobody hoses it, that corner will look different from the rest of the deck within a year.
The second is digging under an elevated deck. Dogs like it under there. It is dry, it is dark, and it is cool. On the hillside lots my Tacoma crews work on, there is often a lot of open space under a deck, and it is a very appealing place for a dog to excavate. Then they dig, and now you have loose soil next to your footings, which is not where you want it. Skirting solves it, and skirting with a buried edge solves it properly.
Is There a Design Change You Recommend That People Do Not Expect?
Give the dog a place to see out.
A lot of barking at a railing is a dog trying to see what it can hear. If the railing is solid, or the balusters are tight, they cannot see, so they bark and they jump and they lean on the thing you just paid for.
So on some builds we do a section of mesh or glass at one end, positioned at the dog’s height, in the direction of the street or the yard. The dog gets a window. They stop trying to make one.
It sounds like a small thing. Homeowners tell me about it a year later.
What About Gates at the Top of the Stairs?
If there is a gate at the top of a stair, mount it to a structural post, not to the railing. A railing is designed to resist a person leaning on it. It is not designed for a seventy pound animal hitting a gate at a run, over and over, for years.
I have replaced a lot of railing sections that failed because a gate was hung off them. The post is right there. Use the post.
Does Any of This Change the Price of a Deck?
Marginally, if you plan it. Significantly, if you do not.
Adding a mesh panel during the build is inexpensive. Adding one afterward means taking railing apart. Closing stair risers at build time is close to free. Doing it later is a day of work. Picking a lighter, textured board costs the same as picking a dark smooth one from the same line.
That is really the whole message. None of this is expensive. It is only expensive when you decide it after the deck is finished.
Robert Thompson, a proud alum of the University of Oregon with a degree in Landscape Architecture, has been a leading figure in outdoor space enhancement for over 17 years. He started his career with a landscape design firm, gaining invaluable experience creating functional and attractive outdoor living areas. Robert joined our website in 2018, where he quickly became known for his innovative yet practical advice on outdoor renovations. He has been the chief editor of our deck and patio section ever since then, helping readers transform their outdoor spaces into personal retreats. When not drafting designs or writing, Robert is an avid kayaker, often drawing inspiration from nature for his creative projects.
