Then again, there's always marble, granite, tile, slate, etc. You could even terrazzo the sills. Concrete?
Chess, maybe you don't have a materials dilemma. Maybe you have a canine behavior dilemma?
You could do 'em in wood and keep an 8' length of matching wood, already finished, around.
Cut fake top sills so that they fit really snuggly over the real sills, or 18 ga. 'em in. When they get trashed, flip 'em over. When that gets ruined, go cut off another length and replace.
Other solutions:
*Rubber-bottomed knit mittens
*Adopt a very short or disabled dog
*Learn to appreciate the design possibilities of barbed wire.
*Board up the windows, only 1/2 way though
A final serious solution: Paint. It's the easiest thing to quickly and completely repair.
Ulitmate solution arrived at by having four: Get over it. All of it. You live with a dog!
Oh i hear you Bob.
We've thought about all these options.
Unfortunately dog training only goes so far unless you have 8h a day to make a police dog type dog. Keeping them from occasionally putting paws up on a low lying window as rabbits, squirrels and birds run by is a tough thing to train into a creature whose nature is to chase these things.
Knowing that is why we are trying to consider some more sturdy options for the sills and trim of the affected windows as they get replaced over the next few years.
Wood doesn't work as it splinters, although fairly easy to repair. Our daughter took a splinter under the fingernail the other day so we really have to consider something to avoid mishaps with the younger son. That aside, wood windows need alot of exterior maintenance compared to anything else and they are the most expensive; so that option is just not going to happen.
PVC is tough but limited for interior colours.
A wood veneer over PVC (what they term here as a hybrid window) is likely going to be our choice since small repairs are easy and in the long term, a new veneer could be placed overtop, or the whole sill replaced while keeping the window pane (reduced cost compared to replacing the whole window).
Selection of household finishes has in part revolved around having dogs. The problem has never been options for colours or style but usually more related to material type (until i started looking at the limited options for windows).
I quite like some of the laminate floors. Some look very real and also have texture. Although a real wood floor still looks like the better wood in comparison, i'll take a laminate floor instead because i would rather have a dog than a pristine looking real wood floor.
