Well, this will be my last question for a few months.  The packers are coming on Monday taking everything into storage until our new house is ready in Jan 2005    We are thinking about putting wooden flooring down in the new house but I wonder if Barney will scratch it when he has his daily 'zoomie' attack (runs round like a mad thing crashing into furniture :rolleyes: ) ?  

Jax

My son has wooden floors and his dogs slide all over the place.    I wonder whether they will have problems with their hips in the future?

Time will tell.

i seriously think that laminate flooring has contributed to flynns hip problem

there are lots of different textures of laminate you get smooth ones some are very very shiney i can imagen you could easy slip on them and you get rough textured ones even with saw marks in . that kind of laminate would be very hard to slip on .
Ive got italian handmade wood flooring . the dog hasent marked it , but you have to remeber wood flooring is just like a peice of furniture if you treat it well it will look good . but the odd dent here or there adds to the look of real wood flooring . you cant dent laminate it just chips. if you see what i mean . quality wood you can sand down 4 or 5 times so if you want your new looking wood floor get someone to sand and re seal it. get a hard wood like a oak or one of the  red woods that will help prevent dents like you get with soft woods pine , maple ect.
tarkett wood flooring is suposed to be really tough . ive not seen it down to say for sure but they do all different things with the finish to make it so tough .

Having had 4 dogs of various sizes on a wooden floor I can assure you they will not scratch the floor.  What really wore out my floor was that I did not put a rug in front of the kitchen sink - I wore the finish off and scratched it to bits with my shoes!

Dogs will slip on wood though, but I doubt you will want bare wood throughout. It's noisy and cold (more cold-looking than cold, especially in winter).

Stacey

We have both laminate and real wood flooring.The laminate is great,been down for over 4years and still looks like new.It was one of the more expensive types tho' ;)
The wood floor however,in our lounge (not cheap!) is cherrywood and both our previous dog and now Spice have made their 'impressions' on it! they did not slip and slide about on either flooring,although my sister's boxer dog did with his longer than normal nails! he managed to score some marks on it the moment he entered the house!
Both are very easy to maintain and clean,especially with hairy dogs! when you see what we sweep up from the floor it horrifies me to think that used to be carpeted! I would put wood or laminate in any house we ever own,with a nice cosy rug underfoot near the settee ;)
Hubby says NO to laminate in our bedroom tho' he says it isn't as cosy as a carpet!
Jacqueline :)

I've got oak flooring. My hubby said it was best to get solid wood as any scratches can be easily sanded out. Well after it had been down for just 2 yrs there were a few scratches but nothing too noticable. The thing I didn't like was the way the shine had dulled in high traffic areas despite being really well looked after. It bugged me SO much that I decided that I would sand it all down and revarnish it. It turned into an EPIC job causing lots and lots of mess and eventually after SIX coats of varnish I got it looking nice again. I will NEVER listen to my hubs again! In hindsight I would have laminate flooring. MUCH cheaper, scratch resistant, & hard wearing. And if anything goes wrong with it rather than go through such a performance with the sanding and varnishing lark it's just as cheap to have a new floor. Go for laminate! it looks just as good as the real thing.

cherry is quite a soft wood unfortunatly . its best to get a professional to sand and re seal  they have the lastest gadgets to do the job . IMHO engnerd boards are much better then solid , They are a sandwich of slices of the wood put in all different directions it makes a sturdy floor once sanded even down on the 4th sand till your down to the spruce base .  you can only sand down to the join anyway so the rest of that lovely solid floor will be wasted so will your money if you buy solid .
As for the finishes ive seen some bad ones that just wont protect the floor often high shine ones you will notice things more .
Our ones have alimum oxide( jet planes nose is made out of this stuff ) pushed into the actual wood its then baked in a overn for 4 months ,then you have plain simple uv coats thats just to prevent water .. to clean the floor and keeping it clean . 
So its hard to figure out from other peoples floors to get one or not because they could all made up of different things :P
If you decide against wood have a look at this site its much nicer then laminate
www.karndean.com it will still add value to your home unlike laminate as its a semi peminate floor . Your looking at 25-35£ psm boarders are extra so are features and design strips , feature strips are free .  People actully think some of the woods in the range are real ( there photo's of real woods printed ) you cant see from the website but they have the texture of real wood too.
Its nearly waterproof , it heats up underfoot and you can have a lovely design

We have laminate floor through our living room/dining room.........it withstands the dogs (all 5 of them) the only thing it hasn't taken very well recently was the exploding fishtank!!!!  So we're now waiting for our insurance company to replace the lot, but I'm definitely going for it again!

I looked at Amtico wood type floors and was shocked at how close they looked to real wood - even next to real wood.  They were indistinguishable and I'm going to have an entry hallway done in it.  I a high traffic area it's more durable than wood and not as slippery or noisy as laminate.

Stacey

My daughter has had Amtico throughout her downstairs for 4 years now.  It still looks like new and Rough Collies, who are known to not like shiny/slippery floors, have no problems.