Vacuum the dog, not the sofa !!

Beat pet hairs on the sofa - vacuum the dog instead!

By KATHERINE FAULKNER
Last updated at 8:23 AM on 4th November 2010

Spending hours removing hair from the furniture is one of the unfortunate downsides of having a dog.

But now a new device could make vacuuming the sofa a thing of the past for dog owners – by allowing them to vacuum their pet instead.

A special attachment which allows you to use your old vacuum cleaner to groom the family dog has been developed by Dyson.

Fur doesn't fly: The Dyson Groom tool sucks up dog hair before it falls to the floor

The company claims the £40 tool will allow houseproud dog owners to remove their animal’s loose hair quickly – preventing it from getting stuck on furnishings and carpets.

It says it will also end the misery of dog-hair allergies – which has meant that many pets have to have their dead hair brushed out daily by hand to avoid their owners having a reaction.

‘A moulting dog isn’t man’s best friend,’ said the tool’s inventor Sir James Dyson, who founded the company that bears his name.

‘Conventional grooming tools tend to just create a fur cloud and more cleaning. We’ve engineered the Groom tool to hygienically remove fur, without the mess.’

But the device is already proving controversial, with some experts claiming dogs could be frightened by it.

Janet Nunn, of the British Dog Groomers’ Association, said while she could see the attraction for those ‘wishing to cut down on the amount of housework they have to do’, the tool would not be suitable for use on nervous animals.

‘Some dogs do not like noise at all so there is little point in trying to vacuum them,’ Mrs Nunn said. ‘Whether they are nervous in that respect or not will depend on the type of sounds they have been introduced to in their formative weeks. Those dogs who have grown up with noise may well be fine being vacuumed.’

The tool can be used on both medium and long-haired dogs.

The bristles and air flow, controlled by the thumb, remove loose hair and flakes of dead skin and suck them into a clear bin.

Dogs are still the UK’s most popular pet, with eight million of us owning at least one. The pet accessories industry is growing rapidly and was worth an estimated £120million last year.

The cost of keeping a dog varies widely according to the breed. Rottweilers are the cheapest, costing an average of £11,197 over a nine-year lifetime. Whippets live for 14 years and end up costing their owners around £66,236.

The Groom tool will be on sale in Conran stores and on Dyson's UK website from today and will be available nationally from the beginning of next year.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1326445/Pet-hairs-sofa--vacuum-dog.html#ixzz14JirQODb