Kim,,,it's very solid. just make sure the glue is spread to completely cover the plank. I have a few spots (like under the kitchen sink) where they missed the corner and it squeaks. They've held up great. I don't have dogs, but I have cats and have heard their nails burning rubber across the floor they go off on their tangents. I've spilled water, cleaned up their barf, spilled food, whatever, it all cleans up very well. as for dents, only if you drop something very heavy. but any wood floor will dent. I vacuum w/a Dyson, and then I use Bona wood floor cleaner on a mop. in the kitchen, i'll often take the scrubby brush and watered down Dawn to clean up spills or oil stains. no problem. no, I don't baby them. I don't wear shoes in my house though. I love my floors. just make sure on install they clean up all the glue residue. my guys were messy and lazy. had to call them back w/special glue remover and rag and go over the entire floor.

Leather is the most 'recognizable' pattern for cork (other than the ground up cork board look). When it is laid it looks like hardwood flooring using 'shorts'. It has a bit of a brick look to it. Ignore the 'pink' in the samples. The pink is the very first colour to fade away. It takes a few months for the pink to disappear but once it is gone the cork (Leather and Logan) will look more like oak in tone (yellowish with some hints of green and some gray). It is a 'directional pattern' which means it has a 'linear' sense to it. The Logan is the most expensive cork pattern you can get. The slices of pattern are random. They are hand cut and hand laid. It takes *roughly an hour for 1 person to arrange 10sf of the pattern. It is STUNNING. It looks more like stone. It is random...did I mention the pattern is random? Leather and Logan can have the extra 2 coats of the Loba 2K Supra AT = super tough. The Latte is a FANTASTICLY tough finish. It has the polypropylene finish on it. This is the 'non-vinyl' product Cancork sells. It is tough....right after that it is SUPER TOUGH. And then for good measure, it is TOUGH!!! For a Rental property, the Latte is a product I would recommend. It does NOT need the Loba product. That means you save $1.50/sf RIGHT AWAY. It can handle 3mm or 6mm cork underlay. If you are looking for temperature control, then I like the 6mm underneath...but CHECK your door heights, etc. All you need to do is take your floor sample and the underlay sample they sent you (their supposed to do that...sigh) and see if it 'slips' underneath the doors in your home. It is that simple. I hope that helps... As for the Tacoma...I'm guessing you are looking at KILOGRAMS (700 kg) as your weight limit = 1540 lbs. The weight of a standard skid of cork flooring = 1000sf (ish...depends on the product) = *roughly 2000 lbs. And the skid sizes are PERFECT to fit between the wheel wells of a truck bed. I've watched this stuff get loaded into pick-up trucks for 6+ years. A forklift operator can drop that baby into your truck (so long as you do NOT have a 'cap-it') and off you go. If you only have a short way to go, the 2000 lbs won't be much of a problem...I just wouldn't do a trip to Bella Coola with it. ;-)

Thanks for the tips. I'll get the sample and compare! We like the look of the shaw empire oak vanderbilt but don't know how to assess quality. My research on this has been all over the place. My takeaway is that engineered flooring innovation has exploded through the recent years and that the quality of the some engineered flooring is the same or better than hardwood. But if I don't get the right one, I'm in for splinters, cracking, black water spots and more. Any brands/qualities that I should require as we make the final selection?

I don't think the hardwood from today is nearly as good as the hardwood from even a few decades ago. I have small dogs - both less than 20 pounds. But they're young, like to play, and they've left some pretty amazing scratches and skitter marks in the hardwood - in 2 different homes. Yes I keep their nails trimmed, they get a quick dremel every week. The old floors were site finished oak hardwoods. And there were spots where the scratches were getting pretty bad. The one house in question is in a beach town, so between the dogs and the sand, the floors were very scratched up. I deliberately chose a wood look LVP and it's held up incredibly well, but no one will mistake it for site finished hardwood either. I have engineered wood in my primary home - and while they've scratched that up too, it's somewhat less noticeable because it's a matte finish, and it's pre-finished engineered, which I've heard may be somewhat harder.