Watch CBS News

Buy It And Try It: The Pet Vacuum

 A group of special dogs get to come to work with their handlers at Sacramento's SPCA, and that means quite a collection of dog hair!

"This is Reba, and Reba was a rescue dog," said SPCA employee Lesley Kirrene.

Kirrene says Reba's hair gets all over her clothes. "Uh, so much hair, I vacuum every day at my house," said Kirrene.

But a certain device could stop that.

"Let Pet Vac get rid of that hair! Pet Vac eliminates hair problems and makes grooming fun!" claims the Pet Vac commercial.

The commercial shows you attach the grooming brush to a long suction hose, the hair collects in the Pet Vac bucket which is attached to your vacuum cleaner in another room so the noise won't scare your pets.

"Pets actually enjoy Pet Vac," the commercial adds.

Reba's going to help us try it out.

We rip open the box and put it together. But already we struggle trying to attach the vacuum's hose to the Pet Vac, it doesn't seem to fit.

"It's not really staying, but it's here," said Kirrene.

Once we get it all together, we flip the switch and Lesley starts grooming, and Reba seems to enjoy it. But Lesley seems a little skeptical, "Doesn't feel like a lot of suction," said Kirrene.

We check the vacuum cleaner's power, which seems fine. Lesley continues to groom Reba anyway.

"If it is working, then I do like it where you don't get hair flying all around," admitted Kirrene.

After about ten minutes we check the Pet Vac. The commercial says, "When the collection is full you simply empty it."

Did we get that much off Reba? "Not much dog hair. I think you're capable of more than that," said Kirrene.

Lesley shows us how much more hair she gets just by brushing. "Unless we can improve that suction, I don't know about it," added Kirrene.

Just to be sure, it's not a vacuum cleaner problem we trade it out with another, which just happens to be louder and the hose attaches a bit tighter to the bucket.

"Turn on the vacuum cleaner and she's trying to make a run for it," said Kirrene.

After calming down a scared Reba, Lesley keeps grooming. But again she doesn't get much suction.

"I was trying, but you don't even feel it," explained Kirrene.

And after a few more minutes on Reba we check the bucket to find again not much hair.

"I was hopeful because the idea is a good one, but not that much hair," said Kirrene.

One final test, the commercial says, "Use Pet Vac at bath time, it works dry and wet."

We try to suck up water in this bucket. It's moving the water around but when we look in the bucket, "Nothing, not a drop," replied Kirrene.

Lesley says she won't be buying one for Reba. "I think I'll stick to my $7 brush. It didn't help us, did it Reba?" said Kirrene.

The Pet Vac has a 30 day money back guarantee. It also claims to vaccum pet hair off the ground, but that didn't work for us. The Pet Vac runs for about $30 at Target.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.