dog hair.

Watch videos from Paw Nation Brief Grasp, Flickr 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." 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, ...

Anna Westhoff 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, ...

"What cat bed? The couch is where I laze around." Photo: tommyhj/Flickr 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 ...