Ivy says:
Imagine my surprise when, after I posted this post about pet hair on the furniture, a representative from the Furminator contacted me and asked me if I’d like one to review and one to give away! Why yes, yes I would. The Fed Ex man (who, incidentally, is not as cute as Mr. Brown, but he’ll do) dropped off my Furminator package yesterday, and I skipped lunch to brush the kitties and my dog.
I could use just one word to describe the Furminator: Amazing. They purport to be the best de-shedding tool in the world, and I completely agree with their assessment. The amount of hair that came off my cats, especially my big fat grey kitty, was both impressive and shocking. I honestly did not know that much hair existed on him, much less could be brushed off. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let me tell the story.
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Meet Simon. Simon is a big, fat, hairy cat. I’d estimate that 90% of the fur I sweep up in my house belongs to him. And he HATES being brushed. Naturally. So when I got the Furminator yesterday, I grabbed him first. I brushed him for about 15 minutes before he finally fought me enough to make me let him go. I ended up with a pile of fur like so:
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Now, that’s a pretty impressive pile of fur. So next I grabbed Spike. Spike doesn’t mind being brushed very much, but I can’t do it for very long, because he’s a rolling stone and must keep moving on.
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Meet Spike. Spike is huge like Simon is, but unlike Simon, he’s not fat. My vet said, the first time he saw him, “That’s the biggest non-fat cat I have ever seen.” Spike weighs 22 pounds and it’s all muscle. Like I said, he’s a rolling stone. And then he has to take a nap, because it’s tiring being a rolling stone all day.
So, I grabbed Spike to brush him. I got about 5 minutes of brushing in before he finally decided he had had enough and used my chest as a launching pad to get himself the heck outta there. Spike’s pile of fur was nowhere near as impressive as Simon’s was, but he had a lot less time and he also has a lot less fur. I waited until I was finished with Tiny to take a picture of the great pile o’ fur.
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Meet Tiny. Tiny is half rat terrier and half chihuahua. He got both the best and worst of both breeds: he’s nervous, but fiercely loyal and obedient. He’d defend me from a bear, but is afraid of the dark. Tiny’s short haired, but he sheds quite a bit anyway. He stood there docilely as I brushed him. 15 minutes later, he was done and I noticed something quite amazing. Tiny’s coat is normally very rough. He adores being petted, but I can normally only stand to pet him for a little while because his coat is so rough. After using the Furminator on him, his coat was very smooth and I petted him as much as he wanted for the rest of the day. This morning, he’s still smooth. Very, very impressive.
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This is the pile of fur I amassed after brushing everyone. It’s not that huge, but what came later was amazing. Later, I saw Simon stretched out on the cat chair, and I thought, I’ll brush him some more and see what happens. Something amazing happened: Simon stretched out on the chair and allowed me to brush him. He, who normally despises being brushed, was actually enjoying it. Shocking, I tell you. I don’t have pictures of how much fur I brushed off, because this time I got smart and put the fur directly in the trash can. And you don’t want to see my nasty trash can, trust me. But I brushed off enough fur to make 4 or 5 more cats, plus a sweater.
So, let’s talk about the Furminator. Simply put, it’s an amazing tool and I would say it’s worth every penny they ask for it and then some. When I saw the videos on the Furminator’s site, I wondered if it somehow cut the hair. It was taking so much fur off the dog, that I thought it must be cutting the fur somehow. From watching the Furminator in real life, I can tell you it’s not cutting the hair, it just gets very deep into the fur and pulls out all the dead fur.
It doesn’t hurt them. I had wondered about that as well, but watching Simon stretch out so I could brush him more proved that to me. I very gently brushed him and he was loving it. And even though I was being very gentle, it worked like a charm. Fur just slathered off him.
So, with that, I’m pleased to announce that we’re giving away a small sized Furminator (for medium to small dogs and cats) to one lucky reader! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and you’re entered to win. One entry per person, please. But you can have more chances to win- simply blog about this giveaway on your own site and leave us a link in the comments, and you’ll get a second chance to win!
So, what are you waiting for? Get to commenting/blogging! This giveaway ends at 12 midnight, Central time on Thursday, August 28th. Go! Go! Go!
