Table of Contents
Every dog owner knows that dog fur sticking to everything, from your clothes, to the furniture, to the carpets is one of those minor inconveniences we all have to deal with. While some dogs shed more than others, shedding is for the most part, inescapable. Since you cannot prevent your dog from shedding, as a responsible dog owner, you ought to clean up well after your pooch. This ensures a clean and healthy home environment for you all, while prolonging the life of your carpets, furniture or even car interiors.
However, if we’re being totally honest, dog fur is not the easiest thing to clean up. Not only is it hard to spot, but it can also cling tight to the fibers of the furniture, carpet or clothing that you are trying to get it out of. For these reasons and more, you can’t always get it all. This task can be particularly frustrating and futile if you are trying to get it out without any strategy. It could really have you feeling like you are fighting a losing battle. To maintain your sanity, I am going to share with you some of the best, tried-and-tested methods that are guaranteed to get dog hair off your surfaces quickly and effectively.
Before we dive in, I just want to quickly point out some of the methods that could work, but not quite as well as you would like.
One of the most common ones is using adhesives like sticky tape. Dog owners wrap the tape around their hand with the sticky side out, and just kind of blot on a surface to pick up the hairs. This method is only practical for small jobs because it would be tedious and cumbersome to use on, say, a carpet. The downside of this method is that you run the risk of leaving that sticky residue from the tape on that surface, and then lo and behold, more dog hair.
Another one is spraying the carpet with diluted fabric softener or sprinkling some baking soda before you vacuum. For starters, these are chemicals and it is not a good idea to introduce them into your dog’s environment.
Another popular method is wet cleaning with a wet hand. This entails rubbing your wet hand on the carpet or furniture to collect the dog hair. Well, this could work. But depending on the material of the carpet or furniture, you could irritate your hand. Also, the inevitable end result is wet dog fur on your hand and it is not a very pretty picture. With wet cleaning, you are also rolling the dice on dampness and musty odors around the house.
This is not to say that these are entirely bad methods. If you have found a way to work around the disadvantage and they work for you, then why not?
Getting back on track, here are some of the best methods to remove dog hair.
How remove dog hair from furniture?
To remove dog fur from furniture, a viable option is using rubber gloves. The technique is rather simple, because you just use a sweeping motion to gather up the hairs with your hand then follow up with a vacuum.
The rubber does a lot to free the hair from the fibers of the furniture. If you want, you can use just a teeny-tiny bit of water on the glove.
You could also use fur remover brushes made specifically for upholstery. They have fine bristles, so as not to damage your furniture.
To clean up with these, just brush in short, quick strokes to loosen and remove the hairs.
How remove dog hair from carpet?
A winning appliance in this category is pet vacuum cleaners. Regular vacuum cleaners do so little in terms of cleaning up pet hairs. Pet vacuum cleaners are made specifically with this task in mind and boy, do they deliver!
If you have a lot of dogs or even one dog that sheds a lot, this vacuum might be a good investment for your household.
Carpet rakes are a great tool for cleaning too. They have plastic or metal bristles that really comb through the carpet fibers. The hair will loosen and collect within the bristles so you will need to stop and clean out the hair from the bristles them from time to time.
There are brushes designed to get fur off carpets too.
Typically, these have stiffer and sharper bristles unlike the brushes used on furniture.
Just like in furniture cleaning though, short, quick strokes will give the best results.
A simple hack is brushing in different directions to get as much hair as you can off your carpet.
An interesting tool for de-hairing a carpet is a squeegee.
I would be skeptical too, but it has been tried-and-tested and it gets the job done.
It is the rubber on the squeegee that attracts hairs off the carpet. Just use short strokes and voila!
How to remove dog hair from clothes?
Being a dog owner, chances are that you already own a lint roller.
If you don’t, it is a good idea to buy one to roll over your clothes before you leave home.
If it is a lot of hair that cannot be removed by a lint roller, throw the clothes in the dryer with a dry sheet for about 10 minutes.
A chemical free option is the use of dryer balls to lift the fabric, loosen the hairs and reduce static which otherwise causes the hairs to stick more.
This hair ends up in the lint trap.
From the Pets Themselves
Grooming your pet to remove loose hairs will drastically decrease the amount of fur that ends up on your carpet or furniture.
In the larger scheme of things, you will have less need for the other tools and appliances that I have mentioned.
There are so many pet grooming tools to choose from, which will remove loose fur before it gets a chance to be shed.
They stimulate the skin too, resulting in a healthy, shiny coat. Most pet parents agree that the holy grail of pet grooming tools is the FURminator.
The FURminator targets loose fur from the top coat and even the undercoat, making it a powerful de-shedding tool.
So, there you have it! Now cleaning time will be much easier and a lot more successful. Happy hair cleaning, pet parents.
About the Author: Mary Thompson
