We have four dogs and two cats. Pet hair is omnipresent in our lives, especially since housecleaning never seems to get very high on our list of priorities.
However, we know enough other dog owners to know that we are not alone. With the possible exceptions of the short list of “non-shedding” breeds, anyone who allows dogs in the house (which is where, in our opinion, dogs belong!) has to deal with dog hair. We vacuum. We sweep. We brush. We cringe in embarrassment when we glance at our clothes in public and see the plethora of hairs that our clothes brushes missed.
If you’re anything like us, you’ve gazed at the variety of dog hair removal products displayed in catalogs and in pet supply stores, idly wondering if any of them work. WDJ decided to find out. We ordered every hair removal product we could find in a towering stack of catalogs and set out to test them. Our home was the perfect test lab.
We found three types of hair-removal products: products that use some sort of tape as an adhesive; tapeless adhesives; and products that use friction and/or static cling to remove hair. We were surprised to discover that, in most applications, the friction products were vastly more effective than the adhesive products. However, to be well-armed for pet hair removal, we suggest including several different products in your arsenal, since each of our top picks excels in a different area.
We’ve listed the manufacturers’ numbers with their products; they can tell you where to find the products locally.
-By Pat Miller
