The reason I need a rug on the porch is to cover up the muddy paw prints. It hardly makes sense to get rid of Otto, the brown dog. I mean, we held on to the children and look at all the damage they did.
In comparison, Otto’s tendency to roll in mud and dead squirrels before stretching out on the porch is tolerable. I even support his relationship with a filthy squeaky duck toy. My only real quibble, besides the paw prints, is that a 90-pound Labrador retriever leaves behind grimy full-body prints more appropriate to a crime scene.
“Why were you measuring the porch?” my husband asked suspiciously the other day.
“For a rug,” I said as tersely as if I were being deposed.
“That’s crazy,” he said. “Otto has a gift. He can ruin any new rug. His record is three hours.”
I feared my husband might be right. How many rugs exist that are stain-resistant, rain-resistant, claw-resistant–and amenable to being hosed off from time to time?
At sites like RugsUSA.com, BackyardCity.com and GrandinRoad.com, I saw colorful, intricately patterned outdoor rugs that would have looked equally at home indoors, at prices that hovered well below $200. At KokoTrends.com, I even saw a reversible Persian-style outdoor floor mat in 10 bright color combinations ($36 for a 6-by-4-foot size).
What revolutionized the world of outdoor rugs? I called the Carpet and Rug Institute, a trade organization that represents American carpet manufacturers, to find out.
The answer, I learned from Werner Braun, the institute’s president, boiled down to two words: polypropylene thread. Rug manufacturers, who have long relied on the durable thermoplastic substance to make most all-weather rugs, have in recent years begun to use polypropylene thread on their looms, weaving the same kinds of elaborate designs that used to be reserved for indoor rugs.
“Mills have modernized their equipment, and as a result you see significant innovations,” Braun said.
I spent hours glued to the computer, gazing at tiny thumbnail images. I was partial to a trellis-patterned rug described as the Terrace Wrought Iron, which I saw at RugsDirect.com for $99 for a 4-foot-9-by-7-foot-4 size.
The rug was nearly identical to SmithAndHawken.com’s Patio Rug, which cost $149 for a size that was a few inches larger, with one key difference. While the Smith & Hawken rug was available in two dirt-resistant colors–described as oatmeal and rust–the rug I wanted had a pale straw-colored background and a moss-colored trellis pattern.
Would buying it be impractical?
I looked down at Otto, who looked so harmlessly clean and glossy, snoring at my feet. Maybe I would be better off with the French leopard rug at BallardDesigns.com ($29 to $299, depending on size) because the mottled brown and black leopard-skin spots on it would provide camouflage for muddy dog prints?
I watched Otto’s claws go scritch-scritch as he chased a rabbit in his sleep.
I wavered. And then, I decided to be brave. What did I have to lose by testing the RugsDirect.com rug? The company offered free shipping and a money-back guarantee. If I chickened out after the rug arrived, I could return it for any reason within two weeks for a full refund.
The rug arrived two weeks later, rolled up inside a clear plastic bag that UPS conveniently left on the porch.
I unrolled the rug. The colors perfectly complemented the striped cushions on the all-weather porch furniture I recently had bought from Target.com.
Otto watched me unfurl it.
Then I watched him mosey off toward the backyard to dig up a bone from a wet spot in the garden.
I looked down at the pale, straw-colored background on the rug–and rushed inside in a panic to phone RugsDirect.com for advice.
“I have this dog,” I told Rex Creekmur, the company’s director of marketing.
Creekmur did not flinch. His firm, which has two brick-and-mortar stores in Virginia, sells 60,000 rugs online and has a home page logo that proclaims it “The Nation’s Leading Source for Area Rugs.”
“Your dog can’t hurt it by walking on it,” he said.
“Really?” I asked.
“Should I hose off the dirt?” I asked.
“I’d vacuum,” he said.
“Wait until the mud dries?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s water-resistant, that’s one of the keys, but it’s a very tight weave, so you should be able to vacuum it to prevent dirt from getting ground in,” he said.
By the time I returned to the porch, Otto had struck. But I felt resolute as I surveyed the muddy prints he’d left behind.
Within a couple of hours, the problem spot dried. I vacuumed. The prints disappeared.
The next day, I found my husband reading the newspaper on the porch, Otto at his feet chewing something.
I heard an ominous squeak. The duck toy was pretty muddy, but nothing compared with what the children used to bring home. “Good dog,” I said.
