We Like: The Furminator

August 6, 2008April 10, 2009

We Like: The Furminator

It’s that time of year again when we seem to have more fur coming off our pets than staying on them, so I thought I’d run this post again on one of our absolute favorite grooming tools.

The Furminator is great! (Though the name is kind of goofy.) I used to use a shedding rake, but the Furminator gets out so much more fur, it’s amazing. This video gives you an idea of how well it works.

It doesn’t cut hair or damage the top coat in any way. It just really gets the shedding undercoat and hairs. You can see in this slow-motion video that it isn’t cutting the coat.

The “comb” is made of closely spaced, pointed teeth and because they are so closely spaced they don’t hurt the animal’s skin, but are able to get deep into the coat. It’s the v’s formed by the teeth that catch the loose fur. You can see them by clicking on the thumbnail.

Saffron loves it. I don’t use it on her undercarriage where there is much less fur and her skin is visible. And I hold her skin taut where it’s looser, like around her neck. As with any grooming tool, I’m careful around her hips and spine. Sage loves the Furminator too, which means fewer hairballs. It’s hard to believe how much fur it gets out of their coats, which means a lot less fur around the house and filling up vacuum cleaner bags. Raven’s coat lays very close to her skin and she doesn’t like to be groomed with anything. According to The Furminator FAQ, there are some breeds of dogs they don’t recommend using it on:

American Water Spaniel
Bedlington Terrier
Bichon Frise
Chinese Crested
English Setter–depends on the coat
Flat-Coated Retriever
Glen of Imaal Terrier
Havanese
Irish Water Spaniel
Japanese Chin
Komondor
Lhasa Apso–depends on coat
Lowchen
Maltese
Pekingese–depends on coat
Poodle
Portuguese Water Dog
Puli
Saluki
Shih Tzu–depends on coat
Silky Terrier
Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier
Tibetan Spaniel–depends on coat

The Furminator comes in different sizes—I got the Medium. Starting with the Medium and on up, you can get replacement combs—screws hold them in place. It’s hard to imagine needing one though. They come with a guard to protect the comb when not in use. Ours came with samples of Furminator shampoos and conditioners. They didn’t seem remarkably different from other good shampoos and conditioners (Note: I am not connected to the Furminator company.)

July 30, 2008June 5, 2013

Optivisor & Novaguard: Two More Alternatives To Elizabethan Collar!

Novaguard, Optivisor, & in background, traditional Elizabethan collar.

I love it when people care for their pets so much they’re not willing to settle for a crappy status quo. Tasi Stampoultzis developed the Optivisor to protect his dog, Billy’s, eye after surgery when it became clear the traditional Elizabethan collar (E collar, lampshade collar, cone collar) was terrible. Elizabethan collars interfere with a pet’s hearing and vision, they make it difficult or impossible to eat or drink, and pets are always running into furniture or walls with them. Stanpoultzis was a contestant on New Inventors and although he didn’t win, I think the Optivisor is a great invention. Don’t miss this video of Billy showing off the Optivisor.

Other alternatives like the Neck’s Best Thing, the BiteNot Collar, and body socks have addressed the need to keep pets from fussing with stitches, bandages, or wounds on their torso, legs, or tail, but so far nothing has addressed keeping a pet from scratching at their face or eyes. The Optivisor and the Novaguard do just that. Cool! It may seem silly to be excited about this, but anyone who has watched their pet suffer from wearing an Elizabethan collar understands.

The Optivisor protects the eyes and the upper part of the face from scratching.

The Novaguard protects the whole face.

Both leave the ears free so the pet can hear, but that also means the ears are not protected, so if your pet is scratching its ears these won’t stop it. (Note: the sizing is for dogs, but I wonder if the smallest size would work for cats.) It looks like they should be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and soon New Zealand. But, it’s not clear if you can order them. I’ll see what I can find out and let you know. (Thanks to John, who let me know about the Optivisor.)

Check out these other alternatives to Elizabethan collars:

July 24, 2008

Mod Pod Pet Bed

These beds are groovy, Baby! The Bubble Bed is from the Italian pet design company, b.pet. The beds are made out of acrylic with a chrome base and a good size for cats or smaller dogs. If you’re in the U.S. you can get them from www.kylousa.com, although not all the colors are available. (Note: I have no experience with this company.) They’re pretty fun and functional looking beds.

July 22, 2008July 31, 2013

How To Safely Remove A Tick From Your Pet

It’s time to revisit my least favorite topic—ticks. Blech! While we don’t have a really bad problem with them in the Pacific Northwest, they pose a real danger in other parts of the country. This previous post is packed with information and presents a novel way of removing them from your pets—complete with video.

Parasites are not my favorite topic. In fact they really give me the creeps, but ticks are an important topic and their removal can be tricky. Using tweezers risks breaking off the body of the tick and leaving its head under the skin.(Ugh!) This can lead to infection and scarring. Applying a noxious substance to the tick can be bad if your pet licks it clean or it can lead to the tick depositing more of its disease-carrying saliva in the wound.(Bleh!) Using a match may cause the same thing to happen and just doesn’t seem wise to do on a furry animal.

Despite the “ick-factor” for me, I found good instructions for a safe way to remove the entire tick on the site Instructables.com. There is even a video demonstrating the technique which only requires using your finger to get the tick to crawl out almost immediately.(Gah!) This technique seems especially good for pets that don’t want to hold still. I highly recommend using latex gloves to do this to limit your exposure to the diseases ticks can carry. Don’t squish them between your fingers for the same reason. Instead, put them in a jar filled with rubbing alcohol. Don’t just flush them down the toilet–this won’t kill them. Once you remove the tick, be sure to clean the wound with antiseptic.

Ticks are serious business when it comes to cats, dogs, rabbits, and other companion animals—not to mention the risk to humans. The mere presence of ticks on your pet can cause tick paralysis in your animals.

Ticks carry a number of diseases including:

Prevention is your first defense. We use Frontline Plus on our dog during flea season, so we haven’t ever needed to remove a tick from her.(Yea!) I definitely recommend using a product like Frontline Plus, Revolution for Dogs, or K9 Advantix. (Frontline Plus is the only topical treatment of the three that kills ticks and is safe to use on cats.) Always check with your vet before administering medication to your pets. It isn’t always possible to use one of these topical treatments on animals with tick infestations, especially in weakened, underweight, and/or anemic animals which happens sometimes with neglected and stray animals. The technique above would be very usefull in those instances.

July 16, 2008July 16, 2008

A Look At Pill-Popping Pets

Here’s a great article on the complexities and ethics of diagnosing and treating psychological problems like separation anxiety, canine compulsive disorder, phobias, and rage in our pets. This isn’t light reading, but wow, is it interesting!

How have we gotten to the place that so many dogs are on medication for psychological issues? Probably because so many people want a dog that doesn’t act like a dog. Dogs bark, they’re social beings and miss their families, they get bored without something to do. Also, the unhealthy environment we live in full of stress, not enough time with loved ones, and short on inspiration is the same one our pets inhabit.

The experts interviewed in the article agree that there is no magic pill and that any medication will work better combined with behavior modification and training. Ian Dunbar, the well respected vet, animal behaviorist, & writer, thinks drugs should only be used in the absolute worst cases. He proposes that almost any problem can be solved with behavior modification through training and the underlying tenet of that training is to ignore the bad behavior and reward the good behavior. (Read more about this approach.) In fact, Dunbar is working on an interactive treat dispenser that will monitor behavior in dogs home alone and reward calm behavior, but will withhold treats when the dog is barking, for example.

The article also looks at the sticky questions of consciousness and emotion in animals. And what it means to diagnose and medicate animals whose reality we can’t really fully understand. It’s true, diagnosing psychological problems in humans is different than diagnosing our pets.

The article isn’t anti-drug and it does a good job of looking at the questions around this issue. It’s definitely worth checking out.