We had been debating getting a shag rug--a flokati, the thick, sheepskin-looking kind from Greece--for the living room. [In this case, 'debate' consisted mostly of one 'find one you think is OK and buy it' request from my wife and several months of me not buying it. Once the kid started scooting around a little bit, though, it was time to commit.]
One reason we finally pulled the trigger on this kind of rug was because the wife had seen a nursery story in a baby magazine--since I'm in a name naming mood, it was Fit Pregnancy--that included this exact kind of rug. Our worries about the compatibility of kid and shag were conquered by the certainty that, "If it's in a baby magazine, it's gotta be OK." We were totally punk'd.
The rug looks great, but the kid crawls around on it collecting wool by the sole- and fistful. Every time you pick her up, you have to defuzz her palms, feet, mouth, clothes... I don't know if she's the Shaggy D.A. or if she's going to start coughing up hairballs.
Anyway, I'm a little dissatisfied with parenting magazines at the moment. [Coincidentally (??) RebelDad is, too.]
Yep: we went to Crate and Barrel in Soho to buy a big white shag rug for our 'family bed'-room, and the thoughtful sales woman talked us out of it. She said that she's had several returns because the darn thing never stops shedding. I've noticed that they've discontinued the item.
Funny, I don't remember this problem from my shaggy suburban childhood...
We purchased a white flokati shag for our bedroom while I was only six weeks pregnant. Unfortunately, our bulldog gave it a test-run for us by eating a few too many dust bunnies in one day and accidenting himself all over the thing in several different ways. After a crack of dawn emergency trip to the vet's (which resulted in nothing but a couple of cans of sensitive stomach food) and three carpet cleaning products later, we discovered that any liquid-mixed debris is impossible to get out of the wool without a comb, a knife, a bottle of bleach and about an hour per stain. We gave up after a short time but could not find one cleaner in a twenty mile radius who thought he would have much luck with it either, so the rug has been sitting in the basement in a trash bag for two months in case we discover some miracle cleaning method for it. Of course bulldogs are much different than children, but I can just imagine what a child and a hidden handful of steamed peas could do...