Our secret weapon in the battle of dog hair

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As a family of six, four of which are furry and four-legged, our house has the potential to have a lot of hair floating around.

Scott and I are huge animal lovers but that doesn’t mean we’re crazy about all the aspects of animals. Hair and its sneaky ability to get literally everywhere is one of those things. In fact, hair is my least favorite thing about all mammals, even humans. I wouldn’t mind it so much if the hair stayed on the mammal but that’s not the way it works. Mammals shed. Most of them anyway. That’s just the way it is.

Dogs are no different. And since we have four of them we are immersed in the hair battle.  Three of our four dogs shed regularly. The fourth, Millie, is a Schnorkie and is considered a low-to-no shed dog. The two boys are Boxers and, though, Boxers don’t generally shed a ton in comparison to other breeds, make no mistake that they do shed. However, it’s the other female in the pack that produces the lion’s share of hair. She’s a German Shepherd called Willow.

A white German Shepherd.

And we have dark colored laminate wood floors.

The weapon

When we were considering the purchase of this house a couple of years ago, Willow’s shedding was actually a concern of mine. I’d never had a home with hardwood (real or laminate) flooring and so I was not only concerned with how to manage all of the dog hair in general but, more specifically, with the contrast between her white hair and the dark floors. I just knew her hair was going to stand out like a neon sign saying, “looky here! I’m dog hair!” against those floors.

I’d seen commercials about the various robovac options available. We’d even seen demos of one at our local Bed, Bath and Beyond. But, I couldn’t justify spending the money on one when 1. we were fully capable of vacuuming the house ourselves, 2. had a working vacuum already and 3. were trying to pay off debt. It seemed like a luxury item that was just not responsible to purchase yet.

However, that was before we moved into a house with no carpet.

After fighting the battle of hair manually for several weeks, I caved, called in for reinforcements and purchased a Neato Botvac D80.

keepin’ it real: please excuse the battle wounds and dirt on the vac, it’s two-ish years old and been through a lot!

This thing is awesome. It vacuums our whole house all by itself! I can even set a schedule for it so I don’t have to remember to push the button each day. While I was an employee, it would do its thing on each scheduled day and I would come home to vacuumed floors! No neon hair signs here! And now, as I transition to being an entrepreneur, it is just as nice to be able to work away at home while the vacuum works away on my floors.

The Neato D80, nicknamed Nestor, works really well on carpet, too. We have carpet in the bedrooms of the house and have a low pile rug over the laminate flooring in the living area. The Neato transitions between the flooring types with ease and vacuums the carpets and rug just as well as the laminate. You can even see tracks in the bedroom carpet from where the vacuum maneuvered much like you would with a traditional upright manual vacuum. And, for the slight type A personality I have, this makes me happy.

also, it had not yet run the day I took these photos; hence, the hair on the floor around it

Every soldier has its quirks

Now, even the best of soldiers can have quirks in battle. And, to be fair, this little vacuum isn’t perfect. There are some quirks that we’ve observed over the last couple of years. For example, on the days when Nestor is scheduled to run, we usually do a quick pick up of anything that the vac might get stuck on like charge cords, socks, big pieces of trash/debris, etc…. We’ve found that the vac does its best to suck these things up but eventually gives up when it can’t (or, in the case of a charge cord, when it can’t move on because it’s now tethered to the wall) and stops in its tracks until the obstacle is removed from its brush. Usually, when this happens, we’ll hear it beeping from somewhere in the house when we get home and know that it probably got stuck on something and didn’t complete its run for the day. It can also confuse itself directionally. The laser on it works pretty well overall but it’s not unusual for it to get a little confused and run itself in circles, into walls or think something is in its path when that path is actually quite clear.

But, despite these quirks, the vacuum is so worth the price. At the time, we chose Nestor because it was cheaper than its Roomba counterpart and had better reviews on Amazon. We’ve been so pleased with its performance overall and are now thoroughly spoiled. I doubt we’ll ever go back to sweeping or vacuuming ourselves.

I mean, why would we? We have the best of two worlds. Life with dogs but with much less hair…at least on the floor.

Now if I can just find a way to manage the hair on the furniture… 🙂

How about you?

What tips do you have to win the battle of hair?

 

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38 Comments

  1. I bought a Maltese to avoid the dog hair. Then my son bought a Blue Heeler and I bought a Maine Coon Cat. Hair everywhere. It sticks to everything and I have to vacuum so much! I feel ya! We’ve talked about a bot, but I worried that it couldn’t handle the hair!

    Reply

    • Jo

      I get it! I’ve been happy with our decision to purchase one but was a little skeptical at first. It’s not perfect but it really does do a pretty good job!

      Reply

  3. Remember that joke a few years ago, the Roomba spreading the, uh, the doggy doo, in creative swirls all over the floor? That was us. True story, lol. We have 3 Yorkies, chosen partially because they tend not to shed. We do lots of mopping around here, and vacuuming, of course, with “pet hair” vacuums. So glad to know the self-vacuumed house works for you!

    Reply

    • Jo

      Hah! I do remember that!! We actually had a similar experience with that soon after we got the vac. Our dogs are housetrained but one happened to have an accident that we hadn’t found yet. But Nestor did!

      Reply

  6. I don’t have dogs but I do have 5 cats, 2 of whom are kittens. I can just see them chasing a robot vacuum all over the house. Part vacuum, part cat toy – win, win!! Ha!!

    Reply

    • Jo

      Our schnorkie doesn’t always know what to make of the vac, haha! Sometimes she confronts it but, most of the time, she steers clear!

      Reply

  15. I had to keep our shepherd outside I just couldn’t do the hair. He only gets to come in occasionally because it was so bad. I had wondered if those things worked.

    Reply

  18. I have a friend that loves her robot vacuum and is persuading me to buy it. She said it changed her life! I think I am convinced now. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  21. We continue to fight the battle of dog hair ourselves. It’s never-ending, of course. While we had wood floors in our last home, the new one has tile and carpet and they are similar in color.

    Reply

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