Thanks all for these helpful commments. I followed the link about padding for hardwood floors and was pleased to see that rebond polyurethane is recommended since it is cheap. Someone gave us some nice free carpet remnants and some nice-looking polyurethane padding with one coated side, but for some reason that padding has a strong chemical smell, so I guess we will have to bite the bullet and actually put out some cash for new padding. I'm intrigued by the idea of using another area rug as padding for this carpet, but it sounds expensive and too thick! In answer to the question of whether we couldn't have rented a place without hardwood, what a sensible question :-) But actually, we were really lucky to rent a place at all with three large dogs! And our rental happens to be right across the street from the house we're remodeling! So no, we didn't have another option anywhere near this attractive. I wouldn't risk just clipping the dogs' nails in this situation to protect the wood, so a pad under our temporary carpet it shall be. The advice to roll up the carpet periodically to remove carried-in dirt is obviously from a fellow experienced dog owner :-) and is very well-taken. Fortunately, our dogs are all very reliable in terms of housebreaking so we don't expect any problems in that area. Thank you all so much for your kind input!

Thanks everyone for continuing to provide hints here. I'm still learning what works for me, going slowly and trying different things. :-) I am able to tear away the top decorative surface, as fnmroberts says, so I did that first for a small section, and then taped the plastic as christophern said. For soaking, I had been using a small sprayer and sponge method first, then tried a little Dif (gel) to see if that was easier than the hot water/fabric softener solution. (And I happened to have some of that Dif on hand). No clear winner: the Dif doesn't drip as fast as the water does, but I seem to use too much Dif to get the same peelability--and the water mixture is cheaper. :-) My dad suggested to "paint" the Dif on instead of simply spraying it on, and I might try that as an experiment. I don't mind going slowly and experimenting, as I'm learning as I go. I'm going to have to do more of the house down the road, so might as well practice until I know what works for me. My dad thinks I should rent a steamer and get it done asap, but I think then the floors really would get wet! Thanks again for the tips on protecting the floor!

I have installed 1/2" x 6" felt pad strips to the bases you refer to. http://www.amazon.com/Equinox-Floor-D-Fender-Pad/dp/B002CM3AC4 You should clean the bottom well first and may need to lightly sand before application. If you have a problem with them sticking, you can coat the bottom of the rim with contact cement. That should do the trick.

We have hardwood on our main floor and LVP on our stairs down to the basement as well as on the basement floor (over cement). When the LVP was first installed on the stairs (it's been a little over a year now), my husband thought the "lip" part of the stair treads (the bull-nosed edge piece) was not installed perfectly flush and secure on several (I think 4) of the treads, so I wonder if that is not uncommon and is what your flooring contractor is worried about. I didn't even notice it, but my husband is a perfectionist and it bothered him. Rather than complain and have the installers come back to address the issue, my husband fixed the issue himself. I think he used tiny little nails (with no heads) to better secure the edge pieces to the adjoining LVP pieces, and I used dots of acrylic paint from my art supplies to cover the bitty nail holes. We have never had a problem with them since and we are up and down the stairs many times daily so they get heavy use. Just wanted to mention our experience in case that makes any difference for your decision. I don't regret using it on our stairs. We picked an LVP that coordinates pretty well with our upstairs hardwood in color, just a little more rustic which fits our basement vibe. We didn't want to introduce yet another type of flooring just for the stairs.