*also uber-shiney floors are essential to extreme sock skiing, 
which is fantastic for crashing into stuff at hundreds of MPH (rough estimate)
*Straying wildly OT, but with memories prompted by this, we had a house with a back-door that was actually at the side, rather than the back.   The kitchen was tiled;  then there was a corridor with a carpet, then a narrow hallway with a polished wooden floor, then the lounge (carpet again), terminating in a pretty solid brick wall.    The corgi puppy started at the back door and launched herself along the axis of the house, Dumbo-sized ears flailing .   I think she started to lose control on the wooden floor, so, even though the end room was carpeted, she tended to hit the wall with a bit of  a bump.

She learnt her lesson, even if the taste for eating live bumble bees proved more enduring.   I think she made it to seventeen years (human, not canine), which is pretty good going for a "dwarf dog".     I still miss her.

I suppose, in context, that I should add that the wooden floor wasn't so polished that any of us, canine or human, could see ourselves in it.