the grills

The only time my grills are on is when either of my 2 grandsons come over. With my mission/cyrus 782's speakers I couldn't hear any differences with the grills on or off. But I now have Dynaudio's C1's. The soundstage disappears with the grills on and opens up dramatically with them off. Which ever sounds better to you and how important is protecting the drivers are to you.

Some designers factor grill into sound of loudspeaker some suggest removing for best sound. As far as protection most grills will not stop a lab or Child or from pushing in cone. But it does keep it out of site and with kids out of mind. With dogs as long as it doesn't have a smell they like you should be ok. My dogs love the smell of certain drivers they do not damage. But they approach to smell which means press moist noise against cone if you let them. And I don't. My cats where harder on my loudspeakers than any child or dog. Thus today no more cats.

I keep mine off.

I do have a Bernese Mountain Dog who chewed through my $5k Crystal Cable speaker cables...:)...and chewed up my Logitech 1000 universal remote... Still love her...

My cats used to use the exposed label edge of my stored records as a scratching post. The sleeves took a beating but the contents survived luckily.

I keep them off, but I can't hear a difference either way.