How To Control Dog Hair In The House

Many of us consider our dogs our best friends and love spending time with them. While we love having them around for companions, the amount of hair and fur dogs shed can sometimes be frustrating if you enjoy a clean house (who doesn’t?). Fur balls rolling around the house can be unsightly and difficult to manage. This can be especially frustrating, especially if you are a new dog owner. For those who are preparing to bring a rescue dog home from a shelter, ensure you follow proper preparatory procedures, as there could be some unforeseen issues associated with rescue dogs. Fortunately, below you will find a few tips on how to control dog hair in the house so you and your furry friends can continue to get along famously without that nagging irritant in the back of your mind.

Groom Them To Perfection

Grooming your dog might not always be something to look forward to. But grooming is known to have a great positive effect for your canine friend, especially when it comes to keeping your house clean of your dog’s hair. Regular grooming has been linked with decreased hair/fur loss. Depending on the breed, try to schedule an appointment with a professional pet groomer every six months to ensure effective results. A full trim and cut helps to ensure the hair does not get too far out of hand. Some breeds require more frequent visits to the groomer due to variance in the speed at which different breeds grow their hair.

Treating Your Dog’s Hairs

Post grooming, you should know when to move forward with the process of caring for your dog’s hair. Gently massage the hairs all over your dog’s body. For massaging, you can use some drops of olive oil or almond oil for best results. Continued and prolonged oiling is considered effective for hair health and growth. After about two weeks of continuous oiling, you will observe a decrease in your dog’s hair shedding. Also, this gentle massage will improve the blood circulation in your dog’s body, which will further act as a precaution against excessive shedding.

Your Vacuum is Your Friend Too

A properly tuned vacuum is essential in controlling pet fur throughout your home. Depending on the model of your vacuum (more below), you should always shift angles whilst rolling the vacuum cleaner over your carpets or doormats, to ensure you are getting the hair that is embedded deeply in the carpet. Second, when was the last time you cleaned the filter and maintained your vacuum cleaner for good? To establish your vacuum cleaner as the first line of defense against allergy-causing dog fur, you should do your best to keep the mean machine up to date and ready for regular use.

If you don’t enjoy constantly lugging around that heavy upright vacuum, there are other options to give you a more “hands-off” approach to controlling the dog hair. Robot vacuums have gained in popularity over the years and have become so advanced (see Roborock E4 Robot Vacuum), they can do almost as good of a job as you with an upright vacuum. They can be controlled remotely, scheduled to run at certain days/times, and auto-navigate throughout your home. As with most things, some are good and some are not so good, so ensure you select one that best fits your needs. They range from the expensive, smart, and super-advanced Neato D7 Connected, down to the more economical robots such as the Coredy R500. The best robovacs effortlessly keep your home free of dog hair without needing you to lift a finger.

Try Electrostatics

I can bet most of you have by now completely forgotten the concept of electrostatics. Electrostatics suggests that bits of paper or small hairs get attracted towards rubber gloves or a plastic ruler. You can simply use this high school theory in your everyday life to help with dog shedding. Use a pair of rubber gloves to help in grooming your dog. Wear the gloves and give them a good rub against each other to charge them. Now, place the gloves centimeters above the ground or carpet and see the magic unfold before your eyes. To your surprise, the hairs will float over the surface of any carpet or doormat.

Feed Your Dog A Healthy Diet

One effective way to get rid of dog hair is to reduce the amount of hair your dog consistently sheds. A dog’s diet promotes, among other things, healthy hair that resists shedding. High quality foods that list meat as the main ingredients are best at ensuring your dog is enjoying a healthy diet of easily digestible food. The nutrients in the high quality foods are essential in controlling shedding and dry skin. While this won’t eliminate your dog shedding hair completely, it will help to reduce the amount it sheds due to an unhealthy diet.

Also, keep your dog hydrated with clean water in summers to prevent dehydration and skin dryness. After getting all the mandatory nutrients, take your dog for a walk to help them get some air. This will make him happy and will promote healthy hair growth, blocking the untimely hair fall.

Shining The Floor

It is advisable that if you have hardwood or marble floor at your home, you should always keep it shining. Mopping your floor with a slightly damped cloth will do the trick for you. It will clean the floor so that pet hairs on the floor get spotted instantly. Also, mopping the floor with a dry cloth ensures that the floor becomes electrostatic. Your dog’s hair will stand up when you take a charged plastic ruler near the floor, which makes it easy for you to sweep them away. Also, as you’re well aware, a clean environment around you promotes an equally healthy life.

If you’re interested tips regarding home upkeep, check out our article teaching you how to unflatten your carpet to make it look like new.

Keep Fleas At Bay

If you have owned a dog for a long time now, then you must already be aware of what fleas are and how bad they are. In simple words, a flea is an insect without wings that can jump long distances relative to their size. In summers, the number of fleas in the area where your dog lives will start to increase. A flea bite can cause serious skin damage which can eventually lead to hair loss. In addition to hair loss, a flea bite can also cause inflammation and macrocytosis. For more insights on how to prevent your dog from fleas, please contact your veterinary consultant. There are a number of different flea collars and other solutions for fleas, but your veterinarian will be able to help you with one that is right for your particular breed.

Regular Brushing and Washing

Brushing your dog should be a weekly to bi-weekly occurrence. Preferably, ensure you do the brushing outside to ensure the excess hair does not go all over the home. Brushing leads to a healthy looking coat of fur and removes any excess fur before it can naturally fall off and onto your floors. Washing your dog regularly is another activity that can reduce the amount of pet hair you find around the home. Depending on the breed and situation, this could be as often as once a week all the way up to once a month. Obviously, the more frequent the better it will be at reducing the amount of dog hair that is shed.