Does Your Carpet Look A Little FUR-OCIOUS? Check out these vacuums rated best for pet hair.

As far as we know there’s no vacuum called the Golden Retriever Fur Reliever, but there are a lot of vacuums that make fuzzy claims and use “pet” in the model name. Do they work?

Well, some are capable vacuums overall, but others are good at pet-hair pickup and little else. To test such claims, Consumer Reports devised a very tough pet-hair test for full-sized upright and canister vacuums.

First, technicians take 5 grams of long, feathery fur from Maine Coon cats and strew, stomp, and smash it into medium-pile carpet. Then they make multiple passes with the test vacuum to see how much of the hair it picks up. Vacuums that rate an Excellent collect all the fur in the bag or bin. Average vacs leave behind visible patches or fur becomes entangled in the brush.