Honestly, wood floors ARE more forgiving than one would think (or be led to believe). We've over-watered plants by a lot, and water has sat for quite some time until we realized it. Wiped it up when we finally saw the puddle(s), and the floor was/is just fine. Same with a leaking hot water heat pipe (for our toe-kick heaters). The floor board(s) in front of our island actually started curling along the edges. Leak was repaired, and we left the board(s) dry on their own. They flattened out over time (not too long).

Yes, wood can (and does) ding and dent if something hard enough is dropped (and it will), but still worth it for us.

HTH!

I love the wooden floor in my kitchen. It is soft, warm and just looks great. I also have the "wood" look ceramic tiles in my tv room. It is off the garage and was the answer to this high traffic area. It looks great,even when dirty, but it is a cold floor.
Can you get gates to keep the puppy out until he/she is trained? We had a very old Golden, and when she had accidents, it wiped up fine. If was never the case where I didn't see it though.
So,get the wood. At some point down the road, you will replace your old floors. At the same time, you can also refinish the kitchen floors. We have redone our living room three times.

I think the main thing with a wood floor is the finish. If you choose a very dark finish (like we did - santos mahogany) the floors show up every scratch. I actually spent the drive in here contemplating pulling out all my wood (not just the dining room area) when we finish the kitchen, selling it on craigslist and replacing the entire living space (living, kitchen, dining and hallway) with a nice pergo. I have pergo in the bedroom and its perfect in every way. Looks real and I could sit there with nails and a hammer scratching and beating it and I think it would look beautiful. I love the durability.

I wonder if I went with a lighter wood in my living area, if I'd have the same issues.

We have several large cats (18+ lb Maine Coons), but no dogs.

Most of our flooring is medium-dark finished wood. Generally speaking, the cat claws slide on the floor instead of actually digging in and scratching. However - there are some claw scratches near their favorite jumping-up spots. Placing a few non-slip rugs near those spots solved that problem.

Cat puke - yeah, it happens. We clean it up as soon as we see it - which might be 8 hours, if it happens right after we leave for work. Haven't seen ANY effect on the floor finish from that.

For us, and probably for you, as well, having pets in the house is a life-style choice. We choose to have the cats inside, and we know that there will be accidents, and the furniture and floor will get scratched. And that's OK, because we like having the cats in the house.

To minimize the problems: Get a hard wood (some wood varieties are harder than others). Get a light stain (pet hair shows up "big time" against dark wood floors).

Ok Sister I hear ya! It was proababy my post about needing to go with stone instead of the dark wood i really want. And Im a Libra too!!!

We had wood throughout our entire downtstairs, a light hand sitressed maple in the kitchen and FR and a dark pre-distressed wood in our LR and Dining. We had a slab leak and now it's all gone. We loved the dark wood in SO much and will put it back.
The draw backs for it were that it only looked clean & beautiful, the day the cleaning lady was there (and that's not often enough for me) we have 3 cats and a 50LB dog and hair & pawprints just get everywhere immediately. Since im not in the rooms very often i could easily let it go. And will again.
here's pic of the floor clean...

and that floor with said kitty and dirt...same day

but in the kitchen that particular wood was a constant problem with water, my kids would constantly drop water and the boards would swell and separate... it looked terrible and i was always freaking out about it.
It being a light wood, was very forgiving with dirt, hair and crumbs, but i want the same dark and i know it will show every single thing and never look shiny.
here's that floor

I would love to hear that i just had crappy wood and to go with wood. But the dirty factor is probably too much for me.
In my mudroom, we put in travertine and its great - doesn't show anything - ever!!! clean or dirty it looks the same..
here's an arty pic my DH took hahah

celineike -I hesitated to put that "Libra" thing in there. Thanks for not judging me fellow-Libra!!

Thank you so much for the pix, and thanks to everyone for responding. I just spoke with my husband and told him my peeps on GardenWeb talked me off the ledge, and we are back on with the wood floor. I think we'll be fine. I'm probably going to go for a finish that is a little bit lighter than I originally wanted.

I can't imagiine ever being without a pet. We lost our first Cavalier back in May and said we would wait a year or so before we even thought about getting another. You know - both the kids at college...lots more freedom. Needless to say, I was "surprised" with a new puppy for my 50th birthday in October. Nothing better than the unconditional love of a pet. And these 2 at home right now (4-year old cat and 10 month old dog) are absolutely hysterical together. They play non-stop all over the house. It's great. Bottom line is, I'm pretty sure we'll never have a picture perfect pristine kitchen - at least not for more than a couple hours at a time anyway. Wood should work fine for us. Thanks -

SQ

Cat? NO problem. Wood that is sealed properly cleans up nicely. Dog? HAH! You have a tiny one. I'm trying to housebreak a monster. ANd wood cleans up nicely. But get a smooth joint--those beveled edges are terrible. I wish didn't know this. :) Wood is a great choice, especially if your dog's nails are small enough to not scuff.

Wood floors are very forgiving and easy to keep clean. They are also great on your back and legs when you have to stand for long periods in the kitchen.

Our 80+ year old refinished floors in our kitchen still look great four years later (and they get rocked daily by two rambunctious Golden Retrievers. At one time we had three dogs here, sadly only two are left now). We put prefinished hardwoods (Impressions by Horizon Forest Flooring, which came highly recommended by our floor guy) in our family room and back halls and that finish is bulletproof. I'm very, very happy with those. All are a natural red oak color, which the dog fur blends into ;)

I'll tell you something though. The kitchen and front rooms that have the old floors are in a high gloss finish. Beautiful, but show every paw print, foot print, splatter, etc. They get ice and water spilled on them constantly, but can handle that because of the 3 zillion coats of poly. The new hardwoods are in a matte finish. The matte is more forgiving. Paw prints and scratches (if any)aren't as noticable. Dog bowl drool is easily cleaned and hasn't hurt the finish. The newer floors are also square cut as opposed to bevel edged. We went with that because the dirt and fur tumbleweeds that the dear dogs bring in don't get caught up in the grooves. It's, IMNSHO, a cleaner look (though I like beveled edges).

Good luck! Woods are fun, warm and easy on the body (and dropped dishes!).

We have traditional OLD oak t&g. It's tough as nails. We have had 7 resident dogs on it at different times through the years with no damage until the most recent resident. She has some PANIC issues and something will scare her and she will SCRAMBLE out of her fear zone. She has scratched the floor some but this is NOT A NORMAL DOG. With normal doggy life you'll be fine. Our dogs are all on the larger side, pit bulls, being the smallest at about 60 pounds. Cat puke usually won't bother things either. It's not enough volume to sit wet for too long. It's gonna be a dry, sticky mess to clean up but I've never found that we had enough volume of moisture in a cat emission :) to damage the floor.

Love your wood.

Rene

We have old oak floors throughout the house, mostly covered with rugs but some places such as the front hall, uncovered. Two small (under 20 pounds) dogs. I think wood floors in kitchens look lovely but I did not want to be worrying about scratches, and there are some scratches on the wood floors in the hall and the stair treads. Also our kitchen and back hall are conjoined and the dogs enter there with their eight wet little paws. We went with tile. (This is one of those decisions where I went along with what my DH was wanting, though in actuality I had to agree he was being prudent. Got me some "points" to spend elsewhere . . .)

The floors in these pictures are filthy. Can you see the fur tumbleweeds?

New floors (they had been in about a day):

{{!gwi}}

Old floors (note the red dog toy at the island):

{{!gwi}}

Both floors feel nice when you're tuckered out from rough play with your little brother (note the wall behind him is torn up here. This is where those two knuckleheads like to wrestle. The floors are fine, the wall got destroyed. I'm toying with finding something to cover it with (beadboard? cut-to-fit plexiglass? steel plating? using magic to make their claws soft link mink?):

I live with a 190-lb mastiff and a toddler on my wood floors. The dog sheds a ton (like, his entire coat once a week, I swear), and we don't keep his nails as short as we should.

Still, our floors have held up well to the scratches, and I LOVE the wood for ease of cleaning. I use a swiffer dry cloth sometimes and vacuum every day. I also prefer wood to tile because I think tile is always cold, and much harder to stand on than wood. Additionally, I HATE grout and will go to ridiculous lengths to avoid it, because it always looks dirty.

~ Mastiff

We had kids and 3 English Mastiffs on our wood floors over a 28 yr period. One refinish after about 10 years but that was done mainly because I did not like the waxed finish so we sanded and poly.