Dog hair on the sofa....help?

[samy23]

We have those soft material type sofas, not the leather ones (which would be so much easier to wipe off the hair!), and I'm constantly struggling to keep up with removing the dog hairs off them.

I put cotton sheets or throwovers on the sofa seat parts to sort of conceal the hairs, like I choose sheets/covers which are a similar colour to the dog hairs so they blend in and aren't noticed too much (they also help if she vomits, I can just wash the sheet/cover and not the sofa). The rest of the sofa I vaccume about every other day....and each time that seems to take forever to get them all off.

Then I have a problem with the sheets/covers I've used to cover the sofa seats, because I will put them in the washing machine, but the dog hairs don't seem to wash off very well. So Im left with a sheet/cover which okay yes might be clean, but is still full of dog hair!!

Please tell me what you guys do about this issue? It's driving me mad! I do kind of make my peace with it somedays and say to myself, "she's a dog, and dog's shed lots of hair, get over it" but if there's any tips out there for the sofa's, I'd love to know.

[greenmagick]

Is the dog shedding more than you would consider normal? Some fabrics just hold hair. Do you shake the sheets off before washing to get rid of excess hair?

[samy23]

Originally Posted by greenmagick

Is the dog shedding more than you would consider normal? Some fabrics just hold hair. Do you shake the sheets off before washing to get rid of excess hair?

No she sheds a usual amount from what I've seen with different dogs. I have started brushing her more often to try to help though.

Yes the the fabric on the sofa seems to hold hair, and the throwover fabric is nylon I think, which is why I then tried cotton sheets...but the hairs don't come off any easier from those.

I have shaken the sheets off before washing a few times, but it doesnt make much difference.

You don't have this problem yourself?

[greenmagick]

I admit to having a high tolerance for hair...but no, my couches vacuum off pretty easily. I had an old couch that was horrible...nothing seemed to get the hair out. The ones I have now are just normal twill I guess? Smooth and the hair just doesnt stick too much. When they are going through their seasonal sheds I have to vacuum a bit more frequently but otherwise I can usually just kind of brush it off.

Hair on clothes and sheets...what kind of washer? I just got a new front loader and have noticed it doenst work near as well as my old top loader for getting hair out.

[lonegirl]

A slicker dog brush works great for removing pet hair from clothes, furniture, carpeting.....trust me....I never escape from pet hair....I get covered at work and at home. Also packing tape or a sticky roller.

[samy23]

Yeah...I guess there's no easy way around it really, unless I save up and get a leather sofa which I can simply wipe off daily with a damp cloth? Anyone do this?

Not sure about the washing machine thing, maybe some do get the hairs off blankets/sheets more effectively than others? I seriously take them back out as covered in dog hair as when they went in. Anyone else find this?

Do you guys even cover your sofas with anything? I like to, as I said before to conceal the hair as I get blankets/sheets which are a similar colour to the hair so it kinda blends in a bit. Also my dog gets sick sometimes and vomits, which has happened to be on the sofa a number of times, and with a blanket/sheet on their, I can easily throw that in the washing machine rather than scrub vomit off the sofa fabric yk?

[2xy]

I read a neat trick in a magazine a while back. Put on a pair of heavy rubber gloves (like the kind you do dishes with), and moisten them a little. Use your hands to rub the sofa free of hair. It's amazing how much hair comes off that the vacuum didn't pick up!

[somegirl99]

Sticky rollers work great. I used one (after vacuuming first) to clean up my car (which my dogs had spent a lot of time on for road trips) prior to a friend's wedding. Thank god I did, because at one point that week she asked me to pick up her dress from the cleaners and I delivered it to her without a single hair on it.

BTW my couch is microfiber (fake suede) and it doesn't hold the dog hairs too much. I also often put down small fleece blankets for the dogs to lie on, those do pick up hair and it mostly comes out in the washing machine (I have to wipe the hair out of the machine after washing them).

[wendinbill]

I have a Dyson Animal, and I use the Animal attachment to vacuum the couch. I also use a lint roller for quick in between clean-ups. It's frustrating, but then I see how much he loves laying on the couch, and I let it go. If people don't like it, they don't have to sit.

I have a leather ottoman and IMO, the hair just sticks to it with static, so not much better-because it's more obvious due to the color.

[rhiOrion]

We have a couple of these fur removal mitts for our microsuede couch. They aren't perfect, but they do work pretty well for getting fur off of the couch.

Don't know how well they work on other fabrics, and it doesn't help your issue of furry sheets. But they're not expensive, and they're reusable.

[SquishyKitty]

I know it's the time of the year when our dogs are shedding their undercoats, so maybe brush her a couple of times a day. I have a furminator, and it's a godsend.

Also, a damp rag helped get the hair off of our cloth couch. But, in the end, we just stopped having pets on the furniture because it was just getting out of hand.

You might try scotch guard, which could make it easier to get the hair off the couches.

[samy23]

Originally Posted by SquishyKitty

I know it's the time of the year when our dogs are shedding their undercoats, so maybe brush her a couple of times a day. I have a furminator, and it's a godsend.

Also, a damp rag helped get the hair off of our cloth couch. But, in the end, we just stopped having pets on the furniture because it was just getting out of hand.

You might try scotch guard, which could make it easier to get the hair off the couches.

What's a furminator? I'll have to look into that. I have used a damp rag/cloth but then I can't get the hairs off the rag!

Rubber gloves is worth a try, because stuff usually comes sliding off them pretty easily once they are under the running tap water, so hopefully the hairs do too.

I have considered not letting her on the sofa's but she loves napping there, and we love her sitting next to us at times, also the hairs are on our clothes anyway so they will get rubbed off onto the sofa even if she doesn't sit on it herself.

Thanks for all the advice so far!

I spent a long time yesterday vacuuming all the hairs off the sofa (I say "all" but it wasn't even close!) they did look much better for a short while though!

I'm thinking maybe I should try vacumming them everyday, like I do the floors? How often do you ladies vacume your sofas and floors of pet hair? -I just don't want to do it so much where it's driving me crazy having to do it so much yk? But it might help control the hair amount a bit better.

[SquishyKitty]

http://www.amazon.com/FURminator-Med.../dp/B000FSFNVI

It really does work like the video shows. It removes the undercoat that they shed in the warmer months. We don't use ours when it's cold because we want them to keep their undercoat, though.

We just pulled ours out last week and it's been used every couple of days. The first day, we got bags of hair off our 3 dogs. Now it's just handfuls as long as we stick with it.