Dog hair de-lima!
 

I could use some suggestions y'all.I've got a couple good dogs.They are out during the day guarding me and mine just like they are supposed to. I finally got things in order where the can come in at night starting last fall.Now at night the guard the entrances to our home.No one or thing is going to enter with out me knowing it.One is in the basement and the other on the enclosed back porch. Both these areas hard "hard surface flooring which allows all this dog hair to free float all over the place and settling under the cabinets,couch,chairs etc.I can't figure out how to deal with this.
I'm thinking if I put carpet down it would catch the hair before it got under everything. I don't mind having to vac. every day if this would fix it. Then again,there are hundreds of type carpet.Indoor/outdoor etc.
Has anyone wrestled this problem and found a solution that works? Would you mind passing it on? I'm really tired of having to move furniture every week to vac. dog hair.
Don't y'all fail me now! It's a biggy for me right now!Any suggestions please!
Thanks,Wade

I have hardwood floors and our dogs are inside. Get a hose attachment and just suck the hair up. I prefer not having carpet that can collect dander and cause allergies.

Damp mopping would work for hard-surface floors. Easier than vacuuming.

Our old farm house has old indoor-outdoor carpeting in the living/family room that needs replacing. Almost everything else is linoleum, or plywood in the mudroom, with rubber matting from the main door to the kitchen sink LOL. Border collies and cats shed a lot.

Peg

Shop vac the dogs once a week and get the hair at the source:hair

There is a tool called the "furminator" that they use on my lab when I board her and she is there more than a week. Seriously, no shedding for at least 10 days after that treatment. Not cheap but boy it works. Then just get a 3'x4' washable rug and you should be set. Very little floating hair with this.

http://www.amazon.com/FURminator-Lon...ews/B0040QQ07C

You can give the dogs a GOOD brushing, with a dog brush, once a week and that will help. You can attach your shop vac hose to the exhaust and blow out a LOT of fur (only do outside, downwind from anything you do NOT want covered in dog hair). You could also buy a robo-vac (irobot or neato) and run it a couple times a week. ( I have had BOTH robo-vacs and like the Neato better...gets things cleaner, easier to clean after using, quieter)

Do NOT get carpet....dog fur winds its way through carpet fibers and it can be HARD to get it all up!

I have threatened to set my shop vac on exhaust and simply BLOW everything from the back of the house to the front and on out the door. If it works for dog groomers....

Mon (currently one large, long-haired dog, formerly FOUR)

If you get carpeting, it will hold the dog fur and is hard to vacuum up, although Berber carpeting is easier in this respect. Carpeting will also hold all of the doggie odors. Ick. I sweep, but I can see where a shop vac would work just as well.

Go on internet and do a search for pet hair magnets. They're a tool that fits onto a broom or mop handle. The plastic head has some kind of straight edge attached to it that uses electrostatic action to attract pet hair like a magnet. Works on floors, carpets, upholstery, drapes, etc. and the hair magnets are easy to clean. I think places like WM, Amazon and Bed, Bath and Beyond has them for around $10 so even if it doesn't work to your complete satisfaction it won't be like you spent a fortune on it. It's certainly cheaper to try that first than to be putting down carpets.

Something else you can try instead of carpeting is artificial turf. It catches hair better than carpets and it can be raked with a rubber rake and hung over a fence and hosed down when needed and it dries faster. It's a lot cheaper that carpets so it would be less expensive to replace from time to time.

Do not get carpet. Not only do they hold the dog hair-they will SMELL like dog.

Dogs shed according to light not temperature. If they are outside during the long summer days they shed naturally and a lot of it just blows away. If you brush them outside you distribute the hair in place other then your house. Birds and other animals love dog hair for nest building.

When we bring our dogs inside especially during the long winter evenings they continue to shed because their bodies do not differentiate between natural and artificial light - which is why the rolling dog hair continues inside. And why you must leave your dog outside if you want an outside dog. With proper wind and snow shelter of course but if you bring them in and out their coat will not develop properly.

We too have only hardwood and tile floors so the hair is free rolling. It tends to accumulate in certain spots because of air flow from windows, doors and furnace vents. We got rid of all carpeting because all it did was trap hair, dirt and dander. Now we just vacuum all the time and damp mop. It is a choice and a sacrifice but really not such a big job. Our current 135 lb. dog is the sheddiest dog we have ever had. He is would win gold for shedding. We just bought a Dsyon stick vacuum. I nearly stroked at the price but it is amazing. Just like using a broom, sucks like crazy and super lightweight to operate. I can just whip it out whenever I see an accumulation of hair and be done in seconds.

We want the dogs inside because of security (would never be without them again) and simply because we enjoy their company. And when your dogs are with you especially at sleep time they really bond to you. The pack behaviour.

There are certain things you can do to mitigate the shedding.

Brush every nday and then damp wipe with a cloth. This is a must.

Make sure that there is fat in their diets. Olive oil is good as well as bacon fat, butter and any meat drippings. You do not need a lot.

We discovered that the most important thing is to keep your dog really hydrated. For decades we thought our dogs would drink what they needed but it turns out that sometimes they do and other times they are like humans and don't drink enough.

We started making what we call "soup" for them and since we feed them twice a day we give them their soup twice a day. In fact they want the soup before the food. Soup is simply some canned dog food or liver sausage or meat drippings put into a bowl and a cup and a half of water added. They lick the pattern off the bowls. We also leave water out for them at all times and they seem to drink more now - I guess they have gotten into the habit. But what a difference this extra regular water has made to their coats. Soft and silky and much less loose hair. Even our Vet has started recommending this trick to everyone.

I used to use a garden rake on the wood floors at my mother's house, to get up long collie dog hair. It killed 3 vacuums before I got this technique down pat!

I use a shedding rake in one hand and the vacuum in the other with our golden retriever. He tolerates it pretty well. Other than that, I vacuum or damp mop our hardwood every day.

We have a few rugs, but I've found that he just gravitates toward those spots to sleep and then they stink to high heaven.

Daily shop vac works for me!

There are knock-off Furminators that work as well as the real ones. Just be careful - they ARE a blade, and you CAN razor burn your dog. Personally, I just use a brush and/or comb - I get just as much hair off my dogs that way.

I do love their de-shedding conditioner when I bathe my dogs - it gets so much more hair out than regular shampoo.

Brush, vacuum, brush! Most dogs shed twice a year, Spring shed usually has the worst amount of hair. But Fall shedding can also be a pain. You can use flea combs, furminator brush and those horse metal curry combs to get that undercoat out. Do small sections at a time, you should be able to see and feel the different coats.

You can drastically reduce the dog hair problem by buying a forced air pet dryer. Same idea as using the shop vac in blower mode, except better air flow control and less noise for the dog. If you use it, say, once a week to ten days I think you would be pleasantly surprised. Do it outside and watch the hair and dander go flyin! If you use one with heat settings keep it on low or off...you can easily irritate the skin with hot air.

I've been a professional dog groomer for 25 years and believe me it works. I also had a kennel and we would often dry bath shedding dogs. Blow out the shedding hair and dander, in other words.

If your dogs have very long hair that can be a problem....you can wind up with a knotted up mess. So not recommended for them.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...dryer&_sacat=0


Here are some from a quick search. I like the Metro commander or the Double K. Both are very good machines, double K is more costly.

I'd get a couple braided rugs for them to sleep on.

Hope I helped... :-)

Oh...and to break them in on the process, start at the back end not up by their head. On low. Also, run it for a minute or two so they aren't freaked by the sound and the blast of air all at once. It will also help if you tether them to something via a short leash to the collar.

The higher the air volume, the more it will force out hair and dander.

Thanks for the info LG. I looked at your link and the ones I read about were talking 45 - 85 cfm. It seems that isn't much different than a hair dryer for us peoples!I don't know,just saying that isn't a lot of air movement.
Through reading your reply it has awakened some ideas for things I already have that might work.I have a (human) hair dryer,an old working air pump for the "bubble-bath" thing for a bathtub,and I have a very powerful (1HP) flux recovery unit in the barn.(It takes two hands to hold this if it isn't mounted down).
Right now,thanks to you waking me up,I think the smart money is on Paumon's suggestion of a "Pet hair magnet" and trying out the things I already have.Sometimes there's just a little dead space between the ears! Thanks for jolting my memory!

Wade

I brush my Corgi-mix outside (tons, tons tons of hair) along with the furminator, at least every 3-4 days. I just leave the hair outside and the birds love it. They have nice soft little nests. :)

He gets a bath only 3-4x a year (or if needed). Not sure if that helps or hurts but I figure less is more. I don't use any sort of special shampoo..just what I use for my hair, which is baking soda and water, with a apple cider vinegar and water rinse. His coat looks really good.

I also feed him a little bit of coconut oil each day, he licks the remainder off the spoon after I've used it for my coffee. I can tell it's helped his coat in appearance too.

Whow! So many great replies! Y'all have opened up a whole new world of tricks and tips for we to try! Thanks so much! I'm going to sit down and apply each of them that I can and just see what difference they will make! And here i had run out of options! Silly Me!
Thanks again,


Wade

Wade, just thought I should have added, if you have or can find a cone shaped attachment you will have the best results. The small opening is what creates the force.

I would be interested to hear about the things you try. :-)

Like everything at a homestead,it is a work in progress. You do what you can when you can and that is dictated by necessity and the only sure thing is that things will change!

Seems life is broken down into" Must,need to and want to" and I don't even remember the last time I got all the way down to "want to"! What I'm trying to say is this is in the "need to" and 30 more truck loads of firewood is in the "Must" so it might be a while.I will try and keep you abreast oof what I do and when(Provided I get that far) .
Thanks again to all!


Wade

And in a pinch, a leaf blower works as a force dryer. :P

What seemed to work for us and our big lab mix was a daily brushing with the furminator and a vacu-robot.

A housekeeper worked WONDERS too. :)