Very soft! Masks general day-to-day dirt from dogs well, but cleans easily with vacuums and spot cleaning as we need. We've had it for about 6 months now and it looks great still. Even had an accident involving blood at one point -- spot cleaning blood was a breeze, no signs of that! We bought a handful of area rugs for around the house at the same time as this one, and I think it's probably holding up the best.