I'm curious as well.

its a loaded question, thats not going to have one answer.

if you talking about a site finished floor, its going to boil down to the type of finish used.

pre-finish floors generally come with an aluminum oxide finish which hold up pretty well. but will scratch and dent too.

softer woods, like cherry, walnut, birch, will create larger dents more easily, while harder woods, like hickory and maple will still dent, but not as easily.

so basically, depending on your color choice and how much money you're willing to spend will determine whats best for you. but no matter what, nothing will hold up flawlessly in that type of environment

I have three boy children and two cats and they are all slobs. We put in engineered hardwood hickory floors with a distressed look. We are going on two years here and the floors look great. I see a nick or dent here or there, but it may be part of the "distressed" look that was originally there. I can't tell. At first, it seemed like the floors scratched a lot, showing white marks, but we don't get much of that anymore, and our kitchen chairs are without protectors or a rug right now.

Do you remember what brand of engineered hardwood you purchased? How does it handle moisture?

I would say that the most durable wood floor is end grain blocks finished with an oil finish. It's durable enough to be used as a road, as a factory floor or in a horse stable.

I would agree with handmethathammer

Life happens. Get a floor that hides all of life's imperfections and you will be happier long term. All floors scratch, ding and dent. Get one where all this just blends in with the look. :)

Well, I'm not a pro by any sense of the word and I learned after we installed it (ourselves) that the Bruce high gloss oak prefinished flooring from Home Depot is not the favorite choice for a lot of folks, but it has sure held up beautifully for us.. Much better than the Brazilian Walnut from Lumber Liquidators we installed in our kitchen and dining room.

We have a 5 year old lab and while we don't have kids, we live rurally where we have snow and lots of dirt plus my husband is hard on stuff. Still the floor looks as good today as it did 10 years ago when we put it in even at the entry ways. It's easy to clean, doesn't show dirt too badly and to my eye, the irregularity of the boards coloring gives it some character and is beautiful (IMO). We get lots of compliments. I do think that not wearing shoes in the house is key though as with any wood flooring.

The plus side to using a real hardwood too as opposed to Engineered floors (and why I insisted on having real wood floors) is that they can be refinished and usually more than once. With the way ours are holding up, I doubt we'll ever have to replace them much less refinish them.

Acrylic impregnated wood flooring or another fortified wood flooring product, if you want some kind of scratch or dent resistance. Any 'normal' wood flooring comes with characteristics that are expected, such as denting and scratching from use.

Look at the janka scale - that will tell you the hardness of the wood. Any wood can scratch or dent though but the harder the wood, the better. Hickory is nice. I have two dogs that shed and we have darker wood floors and they show every single dog hair.

We also went with a 7" inch wide engineered hickory in a distressed finish. While they do show some dust due to the darker color, I still love them. They don't show scratches or dents, and if we get a scratch deep enough to show, I can just touch it up with a dark stain pen (or even a Sharpie!), rub it in, and you never see the scratch again.

http://www.casabellafloors.com/products.php?id=113#

Hardest wood is buloke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allocasuarina_luehmannii

As far as flooring goes, Brazilian Ironwood is available, known as Brazilian IPE. This is best bought pre-finished, as it is difficult to finish and care should be taken with sanding it. It also does not like an extra dry climate.

http://www.woodsthebest.com/Flooring/hardwoodflooringSpecies/ipeHardwoodFloors.htm

Our engineered floors are by Hallmark. The installer was pretty impressed with the quality of the boards when he laid them down. They have a thicker surface layer, and promise they can be sanded down three times. I imagine the floors will outlive us.

As for how they handle humidity, I live in WI and it can get humid in the summer, and I am a naughty wood floor owner and do not always use my air conditioner....and my hardwoods are in my kitchen and ice and water from the dispenser on the fridge are constantly on the floor with people not cleaning it up (kids). I haven't noticed any of this affecting the floors. I thought the point of engineered was to have a more stable floor.

http://hallmarkfloors.com/hallmark-hardwoods/heirloom-hardwood-floors/