Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Housewife Woes

Today I found myself in the midst of a very familiar meltdown. It was the "no matter how much I vacuum I can't get these dang floors clean" meltdown. You see, we have a very, very hairy dog. He's a yellow lab cross but his coat is more like that of a German Shepherd. So he has long-ish wiry hair that weaves into our carpets and a thick undercoat that seems to shed like crazy (I'm talking fist-fulls of hair everywhere!) for months out of the year. For the past 5 or so years, we've gotten by using Adam's beloved shop vac. Well, lately it seems to clog very easily in multiple parts of the hose. My floors are never clean and it's driving me crazy! Normally I wouldn't care quite this much, but with a baby who could crawl any time in the next few months, I just can't take it anymore. I'd like to be able to put Ellie down to play anywhere in the house without worrying about having her covered head to toe in dog hair when I pick her up. Not to mention how much of it she'd likely end up eating!

But that's enough ranting! If anyone happens to read this and has good recommendations of an affordable, yet pet-hair-busting vacuum, please comment!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

we had a black lab/shepard mix and I totally know what you mean (we put him down at age 14 this past spring.) I found that spending time brushing him reduced the amount of dog hair when I kept in a good routine with it. (It took a few weeks to see that it was working.) We also bought a special comb that was good at getting the undercoat.
Anyway, I felt like I was brushing him for less time than I would spend vacuuming and he enjoyed the attention.
All around, pet hair is a pain. I don't think there is an easy solution.