Dog hair is the bane of my existence. We love our pups, but the fur they shed is no joke. Thank goodness they are cute.
Sofia is a ten-year old border collie sheltie mix. She has fluffy white and black hair with a black undercoat. Her hair coats my light beige carpet in a gray film. She leaves giant fluff balls everywhere she goes.
Ryder is a one-year old border collie, lab, husky mix. We kind of thought we won the lottery with him, because he has a gorgeous short, smooth coat. We figured that must be better than Sofia’s rough coat. It seemed to be the first few months. But now that he’s a big boy over 5o pounds, he sheds just as much. Turns out his undercoat is light gray. He leaves wirey gray hairs all over my dark wood floors. They just float around forming tumble weeds.
I can’t win.
We survive mostly with a *Dyson Animal vacuum that I use on the wood floors and the carpet. Unfortunately, the brush head stopped working last week, which means it doesn’t pick up anything from the carpet. Boo! Thankfully it’s under warranty, so while we get that fixed I’ll rely on my secret dog hair weapon.
Before we listed our last house for sale we had the carpets professionally cleaned. I marveled at how amazingly hair-free they got the carpet before cleaning them. They showed me the tool they used and I bought one from them on the spot. It’s a carpet rake and it works like magic to effortlessly pull up ALL the dog hair. This is a similar, less industrial looking *carpet rake.
If you’re allergic to dogs you may want to avert your eyes. The sight of this just might make you sneeze. Just look at the fur the rake picked up.The real secret to making the carpet rake work its magic is a spray bottle. Before raking, spray a section of carpet with water. In a pinch or if your spray bottle stops working, you can run the rubber part of the rake head under water. Keep it damp to pick up the most hair.
What I love most about the carpet rake is while it grabs out all the dog hair, it also fluffs up the carpet. We have cheap, builder-grade carpet that mats down easily. The vacuum just goes right over it not making much of a difference. The carpet rake makes every fiber stand on end for instantly new-looking carpet.
I am not exaggerating here. Just to show you, I didn’t vacuum or rake for the last two weeks. (Really I did it all for you, not because I was off playing with the kids at the pool all week. In my defense, the vacuum isn’t working.) Look how it pulls out two weeks of fur build up and makes the carpet look new again.
My favorite place to use the rake is on the stairs. It’s so much easier to maneuver than the vacuum and easy to flip over to get the vertical carpet on the risers. Plus, don’t forget the added benefit of fluffing up the carpet fibers, which always look the worst on the high-traffic stairs.
I’ve mentioned before that if I could only pick one chore to do before company came over it’d be to vacuum. Carpet raking comes in a close second. The vacuum (when it’s working) only wins out because it does the hardwood floors too. In an ideal world, I’d do both every single week and before guests come over.
Last week I had the honor of interviewing Becky of CleanMama.net (watch the full interview here) and naturally the dog hair dilemma came up. For vertical surfaces she recommended a giant lint roller. I also shared how I use a dryer sheet to grab up the pet hair and dust from our upholstered headboard. So my pet hair arsenal includes the Dyson animal, carpet rake, giant lint roller, and dryer sheets. What am I missing? Share your favorite pet hair removal tricks in the comments below.
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