Posts tagged "dog hair"

Amy D. Shojai is a certified animal behavior consultant and the award-winning author of 23 pet care books, including "Complete Care for Your Aging Dog" and "Complete Care for Your Aging Cat."

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Shedding may be a big hairy deal, but it is normal. Floating fur increases the challenge of keeping just-washed apparel a Fido-free zone. Unless you're a passionate pet lover who considers pet hair to be a condiment, understanding how to tame the hairy mess will keep your pet's coat and skin healthy and simplify housecleaning.

Why Pets Shed
It's not the temperature that prompts shedding. Light exposure, either to sun or artificial light, determines the amount and timing. More hair is shed during the greatest exposure to light. Outdoor cats and dogs living in the northeastern United States shed with the seasons, with the most fur flying in late spring for the several weeks during which daylight increases. But house pets under constant exposure to artificial light shed all year long.

Hair grows in cycles beginning with a period of rapid growth in the spring, followed by slower growth, and then ending in a winter resting stage. Mature hairs loosen in the follicles over the winter. In the spring, another cycle of hair growth begins, and new hair pushes the old loose ones out, resulting in an all-over shed.

Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the dalmatian mix he and his wife Anna adopted as a puppy in late 2009, and the first dog Ben's ever had.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to tidy up because we had company coming. Truth be told, sweeping the apartment usually is Anna's gig. What I figured would be a quick task turned into a two-hour job due to the massive amount of pet hair I found in every nook and cranny. Now I know why Anna talks about our pet-hair problem the way she does; fur seems to appear everywhere you look. I admit that I had no idea before how bad it was.

I've had our cat, Nora, for a long time, so I know she does some shedding, especially in the spring when getting rid of her winter coat. But I had no idea Pippi would be such a fur machine. I probably could have fashioned a whole other dog out of the hair I collected. We could call her puffy twin "Hairy."

It turns out that dalmatians shed year round. Who knew? Many breeds only do it twice a year, but often it's the short-haired pups, like Pippi, who "shed the most often and continuously." D'oh!

Brush the cat hair off the computer monitor and read carefully.

According to a new survey released by Bissell Homecare, Inc, 50% of pet owners give their pets the run of the house, which leads to some pretty hairy homes. Okay, so maybe this isn't news to you pet owners out there, but the survey did uncover some pretty interesting numbers.

57% of pet owners say their four-legged friends are more likely than a significant other to kiss them when they come home, which is either the saddest or sweetest statistic we've ever heard.

86% of pet owners say they don't mind having to clean up their homes more because of their animal companions, but 38% of people surveyed said they would adopt a pet (or get another) if cleaning up after them were easier.

"Sadly, I do believe that cleanliness issues do keep some people from adopting pets," pet lifestyle expert Kristen Levine told Paw Nation. "Anything that poses an inconvenience or a hardship will cause some to think twice about changing their lifestyle."

When we asked Levine, who works with Bissell, for her top pet clean-up tips, she responded, "Before I offer advice, I'd like to tell potential pet adopters this: The love and companionship a pet brings to a family far outweighs any clean up inconvenience in the world! Once you adopt a pet, you'll know what I mean!"

Now for the advice:

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