It’s finally starting to warm up around here. Summer, it seems, may have finally arrived. And, that means … Lilly is losing her winter undercoat. I knew the winter was rough (cold, windy, long), but the extent of hair she’s losing, tells me that her little body knew it too.
I’m pulling brushful, after brushful, after brushful out of her. Most of it comes from her back and butt. But, day after day, I brush and brush, and the hair still keeps coming. I considered taking a photo of all the hair, but really … it’s pretty icky and would be weird.
I could convince myself this is related to possible thyroid problems, but I’m pretty confident it’s just summer.
So, the flowers are blooming, the pastures are drying out, and Lilly is throwing off hair like Mardi Gras beads on Bourbon Street. It’s all over everything, including me. It’s quite a look I’ve got going.
If it wouldn’t completely freak her out, I’d take her for that de-shedding kind of grooming. The one I’ve heard about most is called Furminator. Many of the boarding kennels I write about for a trade magazine use it. But, I checked, and you can buy the special brush at Petsmart and Petco.
SO, on my way home from Karen Quinn’s Holly Would Dream book launch party in Colorado, I stopped and bought one.
Tangent alert!
There I was dressed like Audrey Hepburn (black dress, pearl earrings, heels) in the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday shopping for dog grooming tools. I also hit the Home Depot for a few more seeds and plants for my vegetable garden in the greenhouse. I was quite a sight standing in line next to a bunch of landscaping contractor guys, dressed like a 1950s movie icon. If none of this makes sense, read this post.
Anyway, the excursion resulted in 2 surprises. First of all, they practically have to keep the Furminator brushes under lock and key because so many get stolen. Secondly, the small one is just over $40 with tax. Not kidding.
If the hair situation wasn’t so dire, and if I wasn’t taking one for the team, I probably would have said, “Forget it,” but in the spirit of furthering our collective knowledge … I bought one.
It gets crazy amounts of hair off. Makes me wonder if it cuts or razors the hair in some way because what comes off Lilly is so fine, but the promo text says that’s not the case.
My user recommendation is to clean off the brush/comb after every pass through the dog’s coat. Otherwise, all the loose/removed hair sits on top of the coat or flies around. If you pull the hair off after each pass, you can make a somewhat tidy pile. I recommend doing this outside.
If you dig around, documents explain that it’s an easier form of “carding,” a dog’s coat, which pulls undercoat without damaging the top coat. Care to comment on what that might mean?
Here’s a link to the patent summary. What throws me is the mention of a “blade,” which sounds like a cutting tool to the word girl inside, but I’ll take their word for it, I guess. As long as it gets the hair off outside, rather than all over my house.
If you like corporate intrigue … it looks like Furminator is suing someone for patent infringement.
Ha! Well, I try not to wander mentally too much. Usually, if I feel a tangent coming on, I set it aside for a separate post, but sometimes, my need to tell a story outweighs my blogging common sense.
had to comment to say that I LOVE your tangent alert.
although I wont steal it.
merely because my site would be one big TANGENT ALERT flashing sign.
I’ve been debating on getting one of those for awhile now… But I always cringed at their prices. I did buy the ShedEnder for $10 and it works fairly well for my short-haired boy, but it’s such a small brush.
Ack! See what happens when I get distracted and don’t do my retail homework. I bought the smallest one for dogs for $40+. I bet it’d be lots faster with a bigger one. Ah, well …. live and learn.
Well, probably not what you want to hear but I paid around twenty something with free shipping for a medium sized Furminator from Amazon. I don’t know how or why it works but it’s the best ‘brush’ I’ve ever had. It does a great job on my smooth coated dogs. I get so much more hair out than I do with a normal brush.
I’ve been joking lately that most normal people fertilize their lawn but I Furminate mine. 3 dogs worth of hair leaves a nice mess in the small yard.