I have the same yellow Dyson and it works great on golden retriever fur, of which I have plenty. The filter should get washed at least every 6 months.

Not that this is an excuse for the vacuum not working, but the more fur you can get off the dog by brushing, the less there will be to vacuum. I use a rake-type brush on my golden. People rave about the Furminator brush that is now sold at Petco and maybe Petsmart. But it cost $50 or so. You can also take him to a groomer and they will do a Furmination.

If you dont need attachments, I like the Eureka C2094. Plenty of air flow and a metal roller. Not a fancy machine but deals with dog hair well. If you want attachments I like the Riccar 8920, it also has a metal roller but cost quite a bit more. Either one will outperform the dyson on carpet.

P.S. Have you had the Hepa filter changed on your Dyson yet? If not, you are long overdue. Note that the new filter does not have a rubber gasket, while the old one did. No longer a sealed hepa system with the new filter. Clogged filters were causing the housing to break from the pressure. Happened to a friends yellow Dyson.

I love my Dyson (the ball); i think it's the 15. It pulled up tons of dog hair from our golden. Five months later, though, we got rid of all the carpet in the house and replaced it with hard wood everywhere. Even though our golden is trained not to go on carpet, we tracked it in there or it blew around the house. I still use my Dyson everyday when i swiffer or use the attachment brush when i sweep up the piles of dust/hair. We've also added another golden puppy and they are only in the house when we are here and can watch them. I only wish i had light colored floors as the golden are english creams and every piece of hair shows on the dark floors! The only drawback on the Dyson is that it is very heavy but the suction is great!

Try bringing a throw rug that the dogs have used. One that is a good indicator of your "problem" to a good vacuum store and sample/test various vacuums on it. I tell my customers to do it all the time. It is very helpful in assisting their choice.

I have the reverse question. What kind of dog should we get for our new Miele Gemini? Just kidding. We have a Havanese, and it handles his hair just fine (although he doesn't appreciate our using it on him).

I have tried several and keep coming back to the kenmore cannisters. I had to replace my 15+ year old one (the plug got stuck somehow in the body...) and ended up with a similar one. I did not get the top of the line which is about $350 or so. The one I got was about $220-250 or so on sale. I find with the dog hair it is truly a never ending battle, but at least I do find that the kenmore cannisters are up to the task.

A Sebo upright. They are wonderful and so easy to pop the brush out if you need to. (Although I haven't had to do that yet and we do have a Golden mix with plenty of hair!) We found our Sebo upright that was barely used on eBay. News one are expensive but when you see how they are constructed, they win hands down. My 2 cents.

I would recommend a Miele Canister. I have a Maremma, it is an Italian Sheepdog and man does he have hair. It works great on the carpet. There are several companies that sell online so you don't have to pay sales tax. :) The prices are consistent across the board so I would buy from the company with the best return policy, just in case.

Regardless of the vacuum, you must keep the beater bar clean. Any vacuum you buy will have difficulty if you allow the beater bar to get wrapped up in dog hair.

I just got the yellow Dyson for Christmas and I love it!! I have 2 mix breed dogs and 2 cats (1 long haired) I used to have a Hoover bagless and it took 2 hours just to vacuum my living room with all the furniture and cushions and such. Now I can do the whole thing in under 45 minutes and it does a much better job! It is part of the game when you have animals to have to keep cleaning out the vacuum. I don't think there is any vacuum that is totally maintenance free when it comes to hair. But I must say that my Dyson has made it a whole lot easier!! Good luck!

Dyson has introduced a purple (ball) Dyson Animal. It is terrific. We have a shedding German Shepherd, and it it does an amazing job on rugs that I had almost given up on.

I agree, the Kenmore canisters are GREAT!!!! Unfortunately I have went through two of them in four years. The same thing happened both times where the quick release that released from the handle and the powerhead gets some sort of short in it, the powerhead will begin "skippin" on and off with power until it just finally looses power all together. The powerhead motor is still good, as is everything on the vacuum but the electrical connections seem to short out. Too bad because I LOVE those vacuums.

The Dyson DC41 "Animal" is the best vaccuum I've ever owned for animal hair. We built a new house 3 yrs ago and I had a central vac system installed with "hide a hose" because I was told that the central vac had much more suction. We have 2 hairy beasts - a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Maine Coon cat. The central vac and the hide a hose was such a pain to drag out and use that I went out and bought the Dyson, intending just to use it on my hardwood floors. Since I've had it - about 2 yrs now - I have never used the central vac! It pulls more hair out of my carpeting and furniture than you can imagine. It also is superb for pulling dirt and grit out of the hardwood floors, where the boards are joined. The only downside is how much you have to empty the collection bins because they pick up so much stuff that other vaccums miss. I love the Dysons so much that I just bought their smallest cannister just to clean my stairs and smaller jobs. If I were building another house, I would not waste money on a central vac system again - I'd just buy a Dyson for each floor. LOVE them and I've owned just about every brand of vaccuum cleaner on the market at some time or another.

Update: the Dyson finally died in 2009. We ended up getting a Riccar and when we vacuumed the living room we had been using the Dyson on it sounded like we were vacuuming a beach! Truly showed the Dyson hadn't worked well in quite a while. Anyway we still love the Riccar and purchase the heppa filtration bags to help with dust and dander.

Dyson - purple ball - LOVE IT. I have a sheltie and 4 cats = plenty of hair. It is bagless and I love the visual results of all the hair when I empty the container. Carpets never looked better

We just purchased the yellow Dyson and are not happy with it. It doesn't work very well picking up our dog's hair from the carpet. (It works great on wood floors). We have a Bernese Mountain Dog that sheds a lot of long, thick hair. Her hair gets wrapped around the beater bar after vacuuming only one rug. We can't even get through vacuuming all of the rugs in the hose before the hair clogs up the entire system. We're returning the Dyson and hoping to find something better. Maybe the Dyson animal models are better, but at this point, I'm not sure we're willing to take a chance on a Dyson again.