Monty was grass-stained, dirt-flecked, and ready to hop onto my white chair as soon as he possibly could.

Some one may want to let Monty know it's your chair, because that look says "I'm glad to be home and in my chair."

Don't you know, any dirty animal is immediately attracted to the one thing you don't want dirty. Like the white carpet in our dining room our cat conveniently delivered kittens on =/

go ahead and re-upolster it. Brown won't stain.

My best friend's mom puts little spike mats on all of her furniture to keep the dogs off. She redecorated a few years ago, and the dogs were overjoyed at all the new "beds" in the house.

Maybe I should restart the old Italian tradition of covering all of one's furniture in plastic.

Yep, sounds just like my Nana and Nano's house.

My fiance's mom puts plastic on her furniture and then covers everything with quilts. That way you can't see the plastic, and when the dogs get the quilts dirty she can just throw them in the washer. It works well other than the crinkling sound when you sit down. :)