I cannot help you with regular cleaning, but, I do know from experience that dog paws/toenails will make a worn path through the house.

At present we are trying to restore older real wood floors where the dog made a well worn path through the house. The floors failed with everything we tried, they need to be sanded and refinished.

My suggestion would be to use runners of some sort along the path the dog goes in the house.

One thing would be to have the dog bed close to the door he/she goes in and out to reduce wear on the wood floor.

Hi capegirl-- In our last house, we received no instruction on caring for the hardwoods (red oak stained a medium color with satin finish) and I used Murphy's Oil Soap to clean the floors once a month or so. Otherwise, it was just a vacuuming & a damp mop with plain water. In the new house, we were told to use a damp mop with plain water to clean our floors for the 1st year and to make sure no water was left behind. We use a Swiffer SweeperVac almost daily for routine cleaning--it vacuums and dustmops all at the same time! Seems to be working so far. Hope this helps!