holy moly, nothing like a cat question to lower the maturity level of this board even further. i'm with chadnliz. the comments on this board can be less mature than the comments on a youtube girlfight video sometimes, it's amazing.
as to your question, cocoabaroque, other than what a few of the previous people have said, i found it's easiest to go with on-wall speakers in our family room. i have a set of gallo reference avs that sound amazing with a sub and they are absolutely cat proof.
the other thing i suggest would be to just buy whatever speakers you like and get an extra set of grills to pop on when you want the speakers looking their best (company coming over, etc) if something ever does happen to your everyday grills. i would also cover the tops with something, though. some of the brands i can think of that sound great and have fully-coverable drivers (many of which are high up on the speaker so that the grill doesn't extend all the way to the floor) are: vienna, proac, totem, usher, and devore.
and one note about "declawing" a cat to anyone who might consider doing that, it's a very vicious thing to do to a cat - it's basically chopping off the last segement of their paws in a very unprecise way. sometimes you crush the last knuckle, sometimes they get a bit of the middle bone... it's not a nice thing to do.
