Pet hair vacuum cleaners are marketed to pet owners as the only way to pick up all of that dog hair or cat hair in a single pass. Pet hair vacuum cleaners promise never to clog on the fur and clean your home better than the average vacuum cleaner. Are pet specific vacuum cleaners worth the hype – and often higher price tag? Are there vacuum cleaners that aren’t specific to pet owners that do as good a job?
Do Pet Specific Vacuum Cleaners Do a Better Job?
Pet hair specific vacuum cleaners don’t always do a good job at what they say they are designed to do. For example, the Dyson Cinetic Big Ball Animal vacuum cleaner came in third in the Consumer Reports bagless upright vacuum category. It cost around $600. Ironically, it rated lower than the Dyson Ball Multifloor because the “animal” version did a poor job with animal hair. If you like the Dyson Ball, then, purchase the one that isn’t pet specific. The Dyson multi-floor bagless upright vacuum did a better job picking up pet hair in Consumer Reports’ tests, and it costs two hundred dollars less than the “Cinetic Big Ball Animal”, too.
Dyson’s design problems carry over to its bagless canister vacuums as well. The Dyson Cinetic Animal and Ball Compact Animal bagless canister vacuums both rated poorly with Consumer Reports. And to top it off, the Dyson Cinetic Animal, branded to handle pet hair, did poorly in tests specifically to see how it handled pet hair.
Do Pet or Animal Vacuums Perform Better than Others by the Same Brand?
Vacuums marketed to pet owners specifically to pick up dog or cat hair are sometimes little different than their siblings. Consumer Reports‘ 2016 edition said the Miele Dynamic U1 Cat and Dog vacuum did an excellent job picking up pet hair, but so did the Miele Dynamic U1 Twist. The major differences between these were that the pet version did a better job on bare floors and the “U1 Cat and Dog” model cost almost $200 more. In this case, you could by the basic Miele Dynamic U1 vacuum without pet specific advertising and pick up just as much cat hair off the floor as its more expensive sibling.
Are All Pet Specific Vacuum Cleaners Overpriced Hype?
Vacuums that promise to handle pet hair don’t have to be expensive, and not all pet hair vacuums fail to live up to their name. The Eureka Suction Seal 2.0 pet vacuum cleaner only costs $150. It did a great job with long pet hair in tests, though it had an issue with emissions. The Bissell Total Floors Pet vacuum cleaner cost $140 in 2015. It performed well in tests to pick up pet hair and did an average job on most floor types. The only strike against it was the noise level.
Observations
If you are allergic to pet hair, a vacuum that uses bags that seal when the bag is removed is an invaluable feature. This feature also not specific to branded pet vacuums, though it is something you should consider if you need to ensure that the cat hair or dog hair you just suctioned up won’t escape in a plume of dust as you remove the bag or empty the dust cup. Another factor to consider when shopping for vacuum cleaners when you own pets are the tools like upholstery brushes; these aren’t available with all upright vacuum cleaners, while buying a canister vacuum to gain access to detailing tools like this is more expensive than the average upright vacuum cleaner.
Summary
You do not have to get a vacuum branded a pet vacuum in order to find a vacuum cleaner that does a good job picking up pet hair. A number of quality vacuum cleaner models perform well when pitted against pet hair, whether or not they advertise that fact, while a few do better picking up pet hair than their more expensive siblings advertised to do exactly that.
Howard Lewis says
“True Pet’ vacuums are they only any good when the appropriate attachment is connected? Usually reducing the width of the pick up area and also reducing the ease of pushing a vacuum cleaner