A review of The FURminator

When we first got Ivan, I was kind of worried about having to clean up fur that he'd leave behind in various places. We learned quickly, though, that his lack of fur caused us no extra cleaning duties. Fast forward a year or so - Oliver, a long hair dachshund, comes into the picture. His long, curly hair is found all over the floor gathering in corners in giant clumps. I present to you, Exhibit A. This corner had been swept up not more than 24 hours earlier and already, a giant clump of Oliver sits there, taunting me.


I first heard about The FURminator on a message board that I frequent. The magical tool is said to gently remove said animal's undercoat, reducing shedding up to 90%. The women on the board were swearing they'd tried the Wal-Mart brand; They'd tried the K-Mart brand- but NOTHING compared to The FURminator. I thought, "Oooh, could this be the answer to all my Oliver-Bunny problems?!" The next time we were at a pet store, I looked to see if they had it. They did! I went to grab one and then saw the price. 8800Yen?!!! About $88 for this brush!? No way, I'm too cheap for that. That night, I looked online and found it on Amazon.com for just $21 . Whew. Problem diverted. I'm cheap, but I'm not $21 cheap. So I bought it. Oh, speaking of cheap: I'm cheap enough to not want to pay $5.95 for shipping so I added a $6 movie to my order (The Ron Clark Story- check it out. It's awesome) to qualify for free shipping. Yay!

About a week later, it arrived here safe and sound. I was so excited, I could hardly wait for Blake to come home to bring it to me (Ahh, the wonders of a life stuck at home all day with nothing to do). I present to you Exhibit B: The Culprit. (Look at him, all smug)

I picked him up and carried him into the kitchen to try it out (It was raining outside and our living room is now carpeted. The kitchen was the best place to do it, I guess.)... So. I used the brush and ran it gently through his hair 4 times. Already, I had a gigantic collection of nasty on the brush. "Woah." I said. I continued brushing and he sat there, completely enjoying it. For about 10 minutes, I brushed him, amazed at the fur that practically fell out of nowhere into my hands.

I now present to you
Exhibit C: The aftermath
(and the aftershot)
See? About 10 minutes of brushing time got, like, 12 pounds of fur off the little critter. You can't really tell in the pictures, but he's a lot less "fluffy" or "poofy" than normal. It's really great :) We can now tug at his fur and get nothing to come out in our hands!

So I suggest you go out and buy one today... Even if you don't have a dog. It's that awesome.