As most pet lovers know, getting rid of dog or cat hair from furniture, clothing and flooring can be a challenge, and can be frustrating if you are trying to prepare your home for a showing.

Follow these easy tips to remove pet hair from your home:

For Dogs

You can vacuum the dog! Really. You can teach your dog to enjoy being vacuumed. It's best to start doing it while the puppy is young but you can teach old dog new tricks. It's a great way to get rid of the dog hair before it hits the carpet. Use a small brush attachment tool and massage it over your dog. They really do grow to love it.

Buy a New Vacuum Cleaner

You might want to invest in a new vacuum cleaner. Dyson makes a specially designed vacuum cleaner that removes animal hair. It's called Dyson Animal. It may be a difficult decision to buy an expensive vacuum cleaner but if you are a pet lover and you are likely to have cats or dogs in the house for most of your life then the initial cost could be money well spent to save you from the "pet hair blues."

How to remove pet hair from flooring

Rubber brooms can be used on stubborn hairs. The rubber bristles work with static electricity and the cat hairs just seem to jump on to the brush. Another method is sweeping with a soft bristle brush before vacuuming.

If time and energy are not an obstacle for you, you can go over your carpet with a rubber glove or damp sponge to remove the hairs.

Try mixing some fabric softener with water and mist it on to your carpet with a spray bottle. Don't saturate the carpet just a fine mist is all you need. Allow to dry. After the carpet is dry, go over with your vacuum cleaner.

All of the above methods for removing pet hair from furniture can be used to remove hair from clothing. In addition another handy hint is to put the item of clothing in the clothes dryer for 20 minutes. The lint filter should remove the problem.

For removing cat hair and dog hair from upholstery in your house and car use a rubber glove. Gloves with a raised grip work better. Put the glove on and run under the tap to make it wet then shake off excess moisture. Run your fingers over the pet hair on your furniture in short scraping strokes. You will find that the hair is easily removed and it is especially easy to get into nooks and crannies and areas down the back of your sofa.

You can also use a dampened sponge. Rub the sponge in a downward motion over your chairs, cushions and car upholstery.

Pet stores carry specially made tools for removing cat hair including rubber rakes, pet hair removal sponges, pet hair magnets.

Pet hair rollers are another solution; they are a small hand held roller, which come supplied with disposable perforated sheets of sticky paper. The idea is to roll the pet roller over the area of pet hair and the hair sticks to the sticky paper.

A similar method of removing dog and cat hair is to wrap packing or duct tape around your hand, sticky side facing out and pat this over the furniture or car seats.

Rub a clothes-dryer fabric softener sheet over the pet hair. The softener in the sheet makes it easy to pick up the hair.

A lint brush brushed one way only over fabrics is also useful for removing cat hair.