The short-haired dog brush

Scroll to the bottom of the page to watch my video demonstration.

One word best sums up the pet brush FURminator — genius.
The company contacted me a while back to see if I was interested in testing out their product.
“I don’t know, I don’t have a long-haired dog so I’m not sure I’d really be able to test it out properly,” I told their public relations person.
She mentioned that she uses it on her pit bull and gets out decent little piles of hair every now and again.
“It’s not like the massive piles you get from long haired dogs, though,” she said. “But it works.”
I thought about perhaps having a friend with a long-haired dog test it out. But what she told me about her pit bull kept creeping back into my mind. I started thinking about my own dog hair problem and all the brushes I’d bought that hadn’t worked at all.
“Maybe I will give it a try,” I finally decided.
I am so happy I did.
Short-haired dog owners, take notice. This brush is incredible.
In my last blog, I talked about the challenge of brushing a short-haired dog. While some breeds have hair so short that regular brushing isn’t necessary, there’s lots of dogs out there with “in-between” coats that are practically impossible to brush. For whatever reason, the standard pet brushes just don’t get the hair out.
The FURminator does.
In fact, I was shocked as just how well it worked. With just a couple strokes, I filled up the brush with dead hair. Less than five minutes later, my dog’s coat was shiny and noticeably nicer to the touch.
Not only does the FURminator work incredibly well at removing hair, it also scrapes off the top layer of dead skin. This is a good thing, but definitely lets you know it is not a tool to use with force.
The fine toothed comb is made of a heavy metal and is definitely sharp. Use too much force and I could see it scratching up the dog’s skin.
In fact, after asking around about the product, I found one woman with a Malamute who said her dog got skin infections after the FURminator was used on him by a groomer. After testing this product myself, I feel quite confident in saying her groomer was using a rough hand and ought to think about how her brushing tactics would feel against her own skin. She also might want to think about sanitizing brushes from one dog to the next.
The nice thing, though, is that you really don’t need to use force with this brush. Gentle, long strokes are all it takes to remove tons of hair and dead skin. Sensi found this to be quite pleasurable and I, amazed at the little effort yielding big results, enjoyed the experience too.
Very few dog-related products have I ever felt really excited about — the Halti and gentle leaders are one, Jolly Pets toys and the Buster Cube are another, but the list pretty much stops there. Until now, because the FURminator is definitely joining the list.
To me, a good product is something that makes itself useful over a long period of time. I have no doubt the FURminator will meet that standard.

Supercool
The new, deluxe version of the FURminator features a little button which I think is best summed up by the word supercool.
Watch the video to see the button in action, but basically, it’s a hair ejector button. After the brush fills up, you push the button and a slider comes forward and knocks off every single hair stuck in the brush’s teeth.
It is supercool.

So what’s it going to cost me?
Well, a lot. Quality never seems to come cheap, does it?
I spent a couple bucks on each of the standard brushes I have, neither of which work. So, use that to gain some perspective on the FURminator’s price.
The company tells me it’s $44.99 for the cat size brush as well as for the small size brush for dogs. It’s $54.99 for the medium sized brush, which is what I used, and $64.99 for the large.
From a personal standpoint, I’m not rich and the price would have deterred me from buying the brush. If I had seen how well it worked, though, I could definitely see myself saving up to purchase one. After all, I spent one whole year sticking away $10 at a time in order to purchase Sensi an expensive (yet durable & refillable) bed, and I’d do the same for this product.
So the last question is, where to buy? It’s available at most chain pet stores but for specific stores, Web sites and catalogs, the company provides a page full of listings. Click here for the company’s Web site, then click on the “Where to Buy” tab.
One tip: If you purchase from somewhere like Amazon.com, be sure you’re purchasing a brush from the deluxe collection — that’s the collection that includes the handy-dandy, supercool little hair ejector button.