Does anyone have experience with their dogs damaging a vinyl pool liner? My pool is about 3 years old (4th season) and we got a lab this past fall. He is already ready for the pool. I'm just trying to think about if this is going to be a problem with his nails and the pool liner.
Dogs and Vinyl Inground Pools
- Thread starter StephsterNJ
- Start date
If he is walked regularly and nails are kept short, smooth & trimmed, it should be okay... are the sides straight or are therer slopes anywhere? Any slope or edge will encourage him to "dig in", which could potentially cause damage.
Wobblerlorri
Bronze Supporter
- Apr 16, 2019
- 2,010
- Pool Size
- 4024
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Liquid Chlorine
I don't think I'd let the dog in a vinyl pool. I had a vinyl liner in my old pool, and the cat fell in once. She ripped that liner to shreds getting out! $2500 to replace the liner 15 years ago... Ouch!
I know cats have sharper claws than dgs, but dogs have a lot more weight and their claws are harder and thicker. I hate to think what they could do to a pool liner.
Why not get him a stock tank for his own personal pool? Or one of these? Amazon.com: Intex Mini Frame Pool, Blue: Gateway
The price is right and he'd have his own pool to hair up!
I know cats have sharper claws than dgs, but dogs have a lot more weight and their claws are harder and thicker. I hate to think what they could do to a pool liner.
Why not get him a stock tank for his own personal pool? Or one of these? Amazon.com: Intex Mini Frame Pool, Blue: Gateway
The price is right and he'd have his own pool to hair up!
Our 2 small dogs are not allowed off the tanning ledge (which is concrete / stone) for that reason. Not worth the risk to the liner in my opinion. Luckily, neither of them are that comfortable in the deeper water anyway, and are quite content to just play with the bubblers on the ledge.
If you trim and round file your dogs nails and go in with them to teach him to always use the steps to exit it’s possible, but it’s an expensive gamble that I don’t take.
I just put in a vinyl pool with vinyl-covered steps. My PB swears it'll be fine with my 60-lb doodle using it. Our dog is good at using the steps in the other pool we visit, and we keep his nails short and Dremel-sanded, so I'm hoping we won't have problems! I think that if they never try to exit somewhere other than the steps, it should be ok. I'd feel better if I had fiberglass steps, but I wanted the look for steps all the way across the shallow end. One thing I'm considering is putting some sort of cover/protector on one part of the steps and training him to use that area for exiting. I haven't figured out what to use yet though. If we get a tear, we'll fix it, and we'll figure something else out. (And I'll be sure to tell my PB she was wrong!)