My experiences are that with whatever you do you're going to need carpet or run a runner for the dog... Dogs in my family have never been able to get used to the solid surface - one of them needed to be carried because they were so nervous sliding on the steps. As far as durability, laminate. Hardwood is softer and you'll pay a premium to find a hardwood product that can handle large dogs.

My mother is 85 years old and has Parkinson's, so she has trouble getting around. I am keeping her in mind with your question. I would go with a low pile carpet, if you were my parent. It is softer for when she falls down. Mom has hardwood in her foyer, dining, and halls, and although they are beautiful, they are mostly covered with throw rugs, which are a tripping hazard, but less slippery for her. She has trouble with getting a "grip" on the floor when standing up, and carpet helps with that. Wheelchairs will run grooves in a hardwood floor.

I recently went through this carpet->wood on stairs conversion myself. We had 17 stairs + a landing and an extra step up to the landing. I used pre-finished 5" maple planks (engineered) on the treads to match the wood in the rest of the house. We bought pre-finished nosing for each step ($$$). For the risers I used 1/2" birch plywood painted white (nice contrast with the dark wood). Overall, I'm happy with the end result. However, it wasn't easy and took a long time. 1) it's a lot of work, and, if you don't put some thought and time into it, it will show 2) Walls and stairs are rarely straight, perpendicular, parallel, or aligned in any direction to make this job easier. Each and every cut will be unique 3) Our staircase has a stringer on each side - no balusters to worry about, but that doubles the number of unique cuts to make 4) pre-finished nosing is expensive. Our steps are 42" wide. The nosing comes in 78" sticks. I didn't want a splice in the nosing, so that meant one stick for every stair 5) After we started, I found some places online that sell one piece treads. I'm not sure that it would have been cheaper than fitting multiple planks on each step, but it would probably be a lot less cutting. 6) with 17 steps, the less trips down to the saw and up to test the fit on the top step the better. Of course the top stairs are probably going to be the ones hardest to get right I found the hardwoodflooringtalk website to be very useful during our entire install. There are several guides and a busy message forum. I recommend you (or DH) spend some time browsing it before starting. Unfortunately THS won't let me post a link to them here, but a google search for "hardwood flooring talk" should get you there. Good luck!

Do you already have site stained/poly'd hardwood? If you do, I know it's hard to find prefinished that has the same sheen. I ended up doing the site finished in our entry ways , kitchen and foyer and we had to go stay in a hotel for 5 days! yikes. Every entrance to our house was the new hardwood, so we couldn't walk in or out of the house, but we had an entry/hall that was already site finished oak, and I didn't want to rip that all up to match to prefinished. I really wanted to do the prefinished, but the sheens were so shiney, I couldn't match them up and didn't want them to look odd together. I do agree with the other poster about carpet having as much dust as hardwood - you just can't see it. So you do tend to sweep more often! :-) But, in some rooms, I wouldn't want to have to sweep that often to keep the house looking "neat". I'd love to have hardwood stairs/hallway with a runner. I just love that look and think it would be pretty in your house with your tile foyer. I'd do carpet in the bedrooms just for upkeep sake if not anything else! I would love to take up my dining room and living room carpet and do hardwood...I just can't bring myself to go to the expense when I know I'd want to cover up 2/3 of it with a beautiful Karastan area rug at $$$ for the hardwood/area rugs. But, I just love the way hardwood looks with a beautiful area rug over top!