FURminator Review: Months of Taming Year-Round Shedding

Murphy sheds in July. He sheds in January. He sheds in the two minutes it takes to walk from the back door to the car, which is why the passenger seat of my small SUV has a permanent tan haze on it that I have stopped apologizing for when Frank and I give somebody a ride. He is a 6-year-old beagle mix, 28 pounds, tan and white with a black saddle, and he has the kind of coat that looks short and sleek from across the room and then leaves what looks like a second dog on the couch by Thursday. I have bought a lot of things to deal with that. Most of them ended up in the closet.

In August I bought the FURminator Medium deShedding Tool for Short Hair, the size meant for dogs from 25 to 50 pounds. I had put it off for a year. It costs more than the brushes I was used to, and I figured it was the same idea with a nicer handle. Three months and about two dozen grooming sessions later, I can tell you it is a different animal entirely. It is the only grooming tool I have bought in four years that Murphy does not quietly walk away from, and the only one that has visibly cut down the hair in my house rather than just moving it from the dog to the floor.

How I've Used It

Twice a week, about ten minutes a session, out on the back patio. That is the whole routine and it has not changed since the first week. I keep the tool in the drawer by the back door, the same drawer the leash lives in, so I do not have to go hunting for it. Murphy stands on the patio while I work down his back and along his sides in the direction the coat grows. Gently is the entire method. I do not press, I do not scrub the same spot twice, and I stop the moment he starts shifting his weight toward the door. Ten minutes with a cooperative dog beats thirty minutes of a wrestling match, every time.

The push button is the part I did not expect to care about. When the head fills up, you press it and the loose hair drops out in a clump instead of staying stuck in the teeth for me to pick at with my fingers. I knock it into a bag, press again, and keep going. Over one session I empty it maybe four or five times on Murphy, more in early September when he was blowing whatever coat a beagle mix blows in early September. The first few times I let it pack in too full and had to press twice, which is a small thing but worth knowing before you spend ten minutes confused.

The other thing worth knowing is that the label says to use it as directed, and that is not just lawyer talk. The first time I tried it I went against the grain, because that is what I had always done with the old rubber mitt, and Murphy told me with his feet that he did not care for it. Same direction as the coat, light pressure, short strokes, and it turned into a chore he tolerates and sometimes leans into. I check his skin after every session. He has never had a red spot from it, and if he ever did, that would be a call to our vet and the tool would go back in the drawer.

What the FURminator Actually Does to a Short Coat

Here is the difference in plain terms. A brush or a mitt works on the surface. It catches the hair that has already let go and is sitting on top of the coat, and it pushes the rest of it around. The FURminator is built to reach through the topcoat and pull the loose undercoat hair out from underneath, which is the hair that shows up on your couch three days after you brushed him. The listing says it does that without cutting the skin or damaging the topcoat when used as directed. After three months of twice-a-week sessions, Murphy's coat looks the same as it did in July. No thin patches, no bald spots, nothing that made me wince.

The first session is the one that convinced me. I had gone over him with the old rubber mitt that morning, or so I thought. Ten minutes with this tool and I had a clump of loose coat the size of my fist sitting on the patio concrete. Frank came out, looked at it, and asked if the dog was all right. The dog was fine. The dog was half asleep on the warm concrete by then. That is the honest picture of the difference: not that it grooms him better, but that it actually takes the hair off the dog instead of moving it from the dog to the furniture.

The listing also carries a money back guarantee, which I never needed to use. It is rated 4.7 stars across more than 11,000 ratings, and after three months I understand why the number sits that high. There is not much on this tool to break. The one part that moves is the button, and the button has worked every single time.

Ten minutes with this tool pulled a clump of loose coat the size of my fist off a dog I had already brushed that morning.

Three Months In: What Changed Around the House

The couch is the headline. We have a fabric couch in the living room, and for four years it has been a losing battle with a lint roller. Since August it takes a pass or two a week instead of a pass or two a day, and I have stopped keeping the roller on the arm rest where company can see it. The passenger seat in my SUV has gone from tan haze to a few stray hairs, which is the kind of improvement I notice every single time I get in. The hardwood floor downstairs still needs sweeping. The carpet upstairs still collects hair along the baseboards. But the volume is down enough that I am not embarrassed when a neighbor stops by without calling first.

The car seat surprised me more than the couch, honestly. Murphy rides back there with his nose on the window and by the end of a week that seat used to look like something had molted in it. Now I vacuum it on Sunday and it stays decent until the following weekend. Same dog, same rides, same amount of time in the car. The only thing that changed is that a good chunk of that coat comes off him on the patio twice a week instead of shedding itself loose onto the upholstery.

What did not change is that he still sheds. A beagle mix with a coat like Murphy's is going to shed in November and in April and in the odd warm week in February. This tool does not stop the shedding and nothing I have ever bought has. What it does is take the hair off the dog on a schedule I choose, outside, instead of letting it come off on my furniture on a schedule he chooses. That is the whole value, and it is worth being clear about it before you spend the money.

His coat and his skin look the same as they did in July. No bald patches, no redness, no change in how he acts about being handled. I am not a groomer and I am not a vet, so if you have a dog with a skin condition, a rash, or a coat that has changed for no reason at all, that is a conversation for your vet long before it is a conversation about tools. For a healthy dog with a normal short coat, twice a week has been plenty.

Where It Falls Short

It is not a fix for everything, and there are a few things I would want a neighbor to tell me before she bought one. It does nothing about mats. If your dog comes home from the park with a mat behind an ear, this is not the tool that deals with it, and pulling at a mat with anything is a good way to hurt your dog. It also does nothing for dirt, smell, or shine. It removes loose hair. That is the job, and that is all it does, which is fine as long as you know it going in.

The other honest note is that it needs a dog who will stand still. Murphy will, for about ten minutes, especially with the back door open so he can hear the neighborhood. A dog who hates being touched is going to need two people and a lot of patience no matter what you buy, and a tool you cannot use is a tool that lives in a drawer. The title also says short hair, and I would take that seriously. I would not use this on a long-coated dog, and I would not lend it to my neighbor for her golden retriever.

How It Compares to the Rubber Mitt I Replaced

The old mitt was not a bad tool. It was cheap, Murphy did not mind it, and it did move hair. It just moved hair around. I would work him for fifteen or twenty minutes and the loose stuff would lift up off the coat, float, and settle right back down where it started, and the couch would tell the story two days later. There was no way to collect anything with it. You cannot press a button on a rubber mitt and have the hair fall out in a clump.

My neighbor uses a slicker brush on her dog and swears by it, and I believe her. Different coat, different tool, and I have never used one on Murphy. What I can tell you is what happened in my house. The mitt went into the closet. The FURminator went into the drawer by the back door, and the drawer is the one that gets opened. If you are deciding between a deShedding tool and the brush you already own, the question is whether you want the hair lifted off the surface or taken out of the coat. Those are not the same job, and only one of them empties my couch.

Who This Is For

This is for the person with a short-coated dog who sheds all year and has already tried the cheap things. If your dog is between 25 and 50 pounds, the Medium is the size to look at, and Murphy at 28 pounds lands at the low end of that range. It is for someone willing to spend ten minutes twice a week on a patio, working in the same direction the coat grows, gently, and to stop when the dog has had enough. Mostly it is for someone who would rather take the hair off the dog on purpose than chase it around the living room with a lint roller every day of her life.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your dog has a long coat, because the title says short hair and I would not push a tool past what it was made for. Skip it if your dog will not be handled at all, at least until you have worked on that, because the tool cannot do anything from inside a drawer. Skip it if you are hoping for something that stops shedding, since nothing I have tried does that and this does not claim to. And skip it if what you actually want is a bath, a blow dry, and a full groom once a month, because that is a different job for a different person.