Removing animal hair at home

Pets! Who doesn’t love them? They bring such love and joy to our home. We all know that playing with your dog or cat helps alleviate stress and reduce blood pressure. Sharing your household with a furry friend can provide your whole family with a real happiness boost. Such perks, however, can come with a hairy challenge – the seemingly never-ending chore of dealing with animal hair.

Do you almost hear the familiar Ennio Morricone western film score every time you see a ball of hair casually drifting across your floor? You’re not alone. Many households that choose to have a pet have already reconciled with the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of such an arrangement. However, there is no reason to not have a furry friend live at home just because of animal hair. Luckily, there are several simple-to-follow tips and tricks to remove pet hair in your home.

Encountering animal hair around your house tends to get more common with the changing of the seasons. That’s because your pet’s undercoat is adapting to the difference in outside temperature. There are certain grooming rituals that can help you take care of the problem before it turns into a chore to clean up.

Regularly brushing your pet’s fur can minimise the exorbitant amount of animal hair you see on your clothes, upholstery and carpets. It is not necessary to do it every single day, but making brushing a weekly habit is highly recommended for a cleaner home. Pro tip: brush your pet’s hair outdoors if possible. This way you can just let hair fly around and not have to worry about removing cat hair and dog hair afterwards. Birds will often find these clumps of hair and use them as lining inside their nest. So, by brushing your pet’s hair outdoors, you are directly contributing to the overall comfort and wellbeing of your local bird population. That’s a nice added bonus.

If you have a dog, you most likely already know that giving it a monthly bath is an effective way to reduce the amount of dog hair around the house. While bathing certain kinds of dogs can be tricky, most dogs are actually completely fine with it. Cats, on the other hand, seem to be mostly opposed to the very idea of water. Yes, cats bathe themselves quite well but if you are somehow able to coax your cat into the bathtub from time to time, your floors, furniture and guests with allergies will be thankful for your efforts. A thorough bathing ritual can effectively remove dog hair and cat hair, along with any dander build-up and disagreeable smells your pet might be unwittingly spreading around the house.

Bathing your dog at least once a month is strongly recommended.

1. Brush your dog’s fur to get rid of all the shedding hair.
2. Shampoo your dog twice and use a hair conditioner.
3. Rinse your dog thoroughly.
4. Dry your dog. Gently!
5. Brush your dog once again to get rid of any extra clumps of dead hair.

Often despite your best efforts to keep animal hair off your furniture via regular grooming, stray hairs will still work their way into your upholstery and carpets. You can use a lint roller or a damp sponge. Just rub the damp sponge along the upholstery and watch the hair stick to it. You can try to remove cat hair from your furniture with a tape roller. Or use a lint brush for cleaning dog hair from your clothes. A time-consuming task. And not really efficient as fine animal hair remains extremely tricky.

More often than not, hair can still irritate your allergy-prone guests. Alleviate your guests’ allergic symptoms by keeping a window open, so that fresh air is always circulating around your home. Using an air purifier is another option.