As the owner of two dogs, it feels like I’m constantly vacuuming pet hair off floors and furniture, grooming the dogs and lint-rolling my clothes in an effort to banish loose dog hair. Shedding season is my worst nightmare. I usually just give up the frantic cleaning and grooming attempts and accept the fact that a thin layer of fur has taken up residence in my home.
There are hundreds of pet products on the market that promise to either cure shedding or pick up scattered fur from your home once it’s been shed, but my favorite is the Groomer’s Stone Pet Grooming Tool. It’s not a trendy or high-tech dog tool by any means — in fact, it actually comes from old-fashioned dog and horse exhibitors — but it’s definitely a product that deserves more hype.
This budget-friendly pumice stone-like tool is great for de-shedding and getting dirt and debris out of dog coats, but it’s even better at picking up stubborn hair from your couches, rugs, throw pillows and clothing.
How I found the Groomer’s Stone
People in the dog show and horse world have been using pumice stones and similar products as grooming tools for years. A small piece of pumice or a grooming stone can act like a stripping knife to remove excess hair, and it works on short-coated breeds (and horses, for that matter) to keep their coats shiny and remove any built-up gunk.
I recently started showing my Rough Collie puppy in the American Kennel Club show ring, and I learned about grooming stones from my mentor (a longtime AKC Rough Collie exhibitor) during a grooming lesson. He used a small piece of a similar stone to remove excess hair on the top of my collie’s head.
After going through a few iterations of random grooming stones on Amazon, I finally found the Groomer’s Stone, and after using it once, I knew I was in love. Not only does it help grab undercoat from my double-coated dog but it has just the right consistency to easily remove dog hair from couches, rugs, clothes and more.
Why the Groomer’s Stone is a score
As you can tell by its name, the main purpose of the Groomer’s Stone is for grooming. In double-coated breeds with soft, fluffy undercoats, it grabs on to loose undercoat to help the shedding process along. It works great on my Rough Collie and would also work well for Golden Retrievers, Shelties, Aussies, Great Pyrenees, Samoyeds and other similarly coated breeds. In single-coated breeds, it removes dead hair to keep the coat looking shiny. I find that it sometimes will grab a guard hair or two on my collie, but it’s a much better alternative to de-shedding tools like a Furminator that can damage a healthy coat.
Besides removing hair, the Groomer’s Stone also works great at getting debris out of your dog’s coat. Dog run through the mud? No problem. Instead of plopping my dogs in the bath when things get messy, I find that the Groomer’s Stone works well to remove caked-on mud and dirt once it’s dried a bit. I’ve used it to help get stickers and burrs out of my collie’s long coat too.
While the Groomer’s Stone is great for coat maintenance, the thing that really made me love it is its effectiveness as a pet hair remover. Sure, a vacuum might be able to get pet hair out of your upholstery, but even my Dyson Gen5 Outsize leaves my rescue dog’s fine black hair holding on to my couch for dear life. I’ve also tried the ChomChom pet hair remover, and while it did a good job cleaning my couches, it tended to leave them feeling staticky after use, and it didn’t help the pilling my couch covers built up over the years of having dogs.
The Groomer’s Stone fixed both these problems: It removed all dog hair from my couches in just a few scrapes (even the hair that looks like it’s woven itself into the fabric), and it even got rid of the pilling. I was actually about to buy new, multi-hundred-dollar couch covers because they were in such rough shape, but now, after using this $13 rock, my couch is back to looking brand-new.
The Groomer’s Stone works on car seats, textured carpets and rugs and even some clothing to remove stubborn pet hair. Because of how rough it is, I likely wouldn’t use it on any delicate fabrics, but nearly anything else is fair game. I regularly use it to de-shed black leggings while wearing them. One thing to note is that it doesn’t always hold on to all the hair it pulls off a surface like a brush or ChomChom would, so you still might have to vacuum or grab on to loose hair with your hand after using it (but at such a low price, it’s a fair trade-off).
For $13, you won’t find a better all-purpose grooming and cleaning tool than the Groomer’s Stone. Whether you’re struggling with a heavy-duty seasonal shed on a long-coated breed or just need something cheaper than a $500 vacuum to get dog hair off your couch, this little brick is worth a try. While it doesn’t do the best job of holding on to the dog hair it’s picked up, it works impressively at removing loose undercoat, getting rid of stuck-on mud and other gunk in a dog’s coat, not to mention it does a fantastic job keeping couches and clothing dog hair-free.
