Ah, pets. They give us so much: unconditional love, affection, companionship, entertainment – and hair. So. Much. Hair.
Short of getting a non-shedding dog or hairless cat, a good vacuum is your best defence against the seemingly never-ending clumps of hair that accumulate in pet-friendly homes. But not all vacuums are up to the challenge.
Whether you’re considering a robot vac, a stick vac, or a regular barrel vac, choosing the right model can mean the difference between a clean home and living knee-deep in fur.
We’ll reveal some of the best fur busters from our tests and which vacuums to avoid.
Why choosing the right vacuum is important: one barely picks up any pet hair, while another leaves the floor virtually hair-free.
The worst vacuums for removing pet hair
They may not be pet-specific vacuums, but these models were no match for pet hair in our tests. You’d almost be better off picking up the dog hair tumbleweed by hand.
Here are the vacs that well and truly lost the fight against the fur.
At $169 it’s a steal, but this Kmart bot really isn’t the cat’s pyjamas.
We’ve sifted through CHOICE’s extensive testing data to find hair-raising vacuum cleaners from the top, middle and bottom price points of the market.
CHOICE expert Adrian Lini puts vacuums through their paces in our labs.
They’re not the only high-performing fur-busters we’ve tested, but they’ll give you a starting point from which to continue your search.
But remember, a vacuum that scores well for pet hair removal might bomb out on our other tests.
Some of the vacs below aced our other tests and are recommended by our experts; others are one-trick ponies and are inconsistent across other cleaning tasks.
Want to know which is which?
Our members have access to all of our detailed vacuum test data, so if you want to sort the stars from the suckers, consider becoming a CHOICE member.
In disappointing news for pet owners who were hoping a robot vac would free them from the endless task of cleaning up fur, not many of the robot vacuums we’ve tested perform well in our pet hair removal test.
Only six robots managed to achieve a score of 80% for removing pet hair, but 10 scored 50% or less.
If you want the best robot vac for pet hair, be prepared to pay. Of the bots that busted the most fur, most cost $2500 and upwards.
Of the bots that busted the most fur, most cost $2500 and upwards
While they aced our pet hair test, their abilities in other areas weren’t always as impressive.
None of them are great at picking up other types of dirt from carpet (they’re all rated as “poor” or “very poor” by our experts), and some of them are mediocre moppers too.
One bot in this line-up received one of the lowest CHOICE Expert Ratings of all the machines in our test, earning a place in the infamous list of robot vacs to avoid buying.
This just goes to show that buying a vacuum based on one metric alone can leave you out of pocket and up to your elbows in pet hair.
But our detailed robot vacuum reviews include scores for a range of tests so you can find the right bot for your particular needs.
Have tiled floors and a dog that sheds a lot? Look for a vacuum that scores well for pet hair removal and picking up dirt from a hard floor.
Need a bot that can mop up your pooch’s drool puddles? Check each robot vac’s mopping performance score.
All of these details and more are available exclusively to CHOICE members. Plus, you can access expert reviews for more than 200 products, so you won’t get stuck with a dud again.
Without further ado, here are some of the top-scoring robot vacs for picking up pet hair.
The affordable option
It’ll tidy up the pet hair, but this TP-Link bot won’t clean much dirt from your carpet.
Stick vacs are perfect for quick cleans to keep the dirt at bay until you can get in there to do a proper job with your barrel or upright vac.
For that reason they’re fantastic for pet-friendly homes: they can help you keep on top of the fur so it doesn’t get out of hand in between deep cleans.
Stick vacs really shine on hard floors. In our current stick vacuum review, well over half of the vacs we tested score 75% or higher for hard floor cleaning, so if you have furry friends and floorboards, a stick vac could be a big help.
Unfortunately, not all stick vacs fare so well on carpet, so you’ll have to be a little more picky if you want to keep your rugs free of cat hair confetti.
The affordable option
This Dyson is the best in show for $1500+ budgets.
Three of the best barrel and upright vacuums for pet hair
If you’re a pet owner wanting a barrel or upright vacuum that’ll blitz the pet hair, CHOICE vacuum expert Adrian Lini recommends looking for one that has a powered head and suggests opting for a bagged, rather than bagless, model.
But most importantly, look for one that scores well in our pet hair test (and in our other vacuum tests too, ideally).
These three corded vacs did an excellent job at picking up pet hair in our test labs.
The affordable upright vac
The Shark Navigator Pet is one ‘pet’ vac that actually is appropriately named.
Here at CHOICE, we’re sticklers for detail, so we use real pet hair for our testing. We get our pet hair from Woof Cat & Dog Grooming in Bondi, Sydney.
Our tester embeds cat hair in carpet and then vacuums it to a set pattern and speed. The score is calculated on the basis of how much hair is left behind after the test.
Pet hair removal counts towards 15% of the overall CHOICE Expert Rating.
Alice Richard is a Content creator and marketer. Alice writes on a range of topics, from health insurance to heaters and BBQs to bargain-hunting, always with the aim to help consumers find the best products to buy, and which to avoid.
Alice can take vast amounts of data from CHOICE product tests and turn it into content that is easily digestible and fun for readers.
Alice has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland.
Alice Richard is a Content creator and marketer. Alice writes on a range of topics, from health insurance to heaters and BBQs to bargain-hunting, always with the aim to help consumers find the best products to buy, and which to avoid.
Alice can take vast amounts of data from CHOICE product tests and turn it into content that is easily digestible and fun for readers.
Alice has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland.
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