A Trusted Friend in a Complicated World
Updated on Sep. 24, 2024
Dog and cat parents need the best Shark vacuum for pet hair in order to keep their home as spotless as they'd like. We tested the top models ourselves.
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If you’ve made up your mind on the Shark vs. Dyson debate and have cemented your position on Team Shark, you won’t be disappointed. After all, the brand makes some of the best vacuums for pet hair, and its products are more affordable than those of the competition. Shark vacuums feature No-Loss-of-Suction vacuum technology and are available in a variety of models, including upright, cordless and handheld machines. In fact, there are so many quality vacuums to choose from that finding the best one for your needs can be tough. To help you decide, we researched and tested some of the best Shark vacuums for pet hair in our fur-filled homes.
All of the vacuums on our list will remove pet hair from your floors, furniture and car in just a few passes. Some will even remove puppy piddles from your carpets, leaving your space completely free from hair and odors. We paid special attention to each machine’s suction, maneuverability and special features to determine whether or not they could stand up to real-life pets. These are the best Shark vacuums for pet hair that exceeded our expectations.
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If you live with pets (or kids for that matter) then you know just how much fur, hair and debris accumulates, well, everywhere. If your thoughts just went straight to the fur balls underneath your sofa, then the Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum is for you. This lightweight, cordless wonder is a versatile machine that switches seamlessly between rugs and hard floors, and even converts to a handheld vacuum that you can use in your car. It also has MultiFLEX technology, which allows you to bend the wand to clean under furniture. See ya, fur balls!
Senior shopping editor, Caroline Lubinsky, shares her home with three dogs—one small short-haired dachshund, one long-haired dachshund and one heavy shedder, short-haired pit/lab mix—and was blown away by this vacuum’s performance. “This vacuum has the most suction and maximum hair pickup of any I’ve used. I emptied the canister four times the first time I used it on a heavily trafficked area rug,” she raves. “This picks up so much hair that you wonder what your previous vac was doing.”
One of the features that earned this vacuum the top spot on our list is its CleanSense IQ. This technology uses an infrared sensor, which detects the dirt you can’t see and automatically increases power, giving you up to 50% better dirt pickup. According to Lubinsky, this allowed the vacuum to suck up a ton of pet hair in just three passes. And you won’t have to wonder whether or not you’ve gotten all of the hair up. The Clean Sense IQ indicator visually shows when floors are clean.
After you’re done sucking up all of Fido’s fur, simply hold the canister over a trash can and empty the debris with just the push of a button. And don’t worry about untangling or unwrapping spools of hair from the brushroll. This model has a self-cleaning brushroll to prevent hair wrap.
This vacuum will set you back $499. However, Lubinsky says it’s worth it. “It seems pricey, but it is on par with Dyson as far as price and quality,” she explains.
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Believe it or not, there are plenty of cheap vacuums that’ll keep your floors and furniture free from pet hair. Shark’s UltraLight PetPro is one such vacuum. This budget-friendly machine boasts light-emitting diode (LED) headlights that allow you to easily spot hair, dirt and dust, odor-neutralizing technology, which guards against that dirty dog smell, and a self-cleaning brushroll to prevent hair wrap. But these features aren’t the only impressive things about this vacuum. It turns out that it’s a total powerhouse.
“She may be compact, but this beauty is surprisingly powerful. It truly only takes one pass to pick up pet hair, crumbs, dust—you name it,” says shopping editor, Madi Koetting. “Because there are only two modes for carpet or hard floors, I don’t have to switch between power settings to get a thorough clean.” In fact, this vacuum is so powerful that Koetting adds it could even be a little too powerful at times. She explains that the suction is so powerful that it makes it awkward to maneuver, especially around furniture, since it quite literally suctions to the rug/carpet to thoroughly clean every fiber. However, the fact that this vacuum is not just picking up pet hair more than makes up for the less-than-stellar maneuverability.
“My dog is hypoallergenic, so her shedding is minimal. I, however, shed quite a bit, resulting in copious hair strands clogging the brushroll of other vacuums I’ve owned or tested,” explains Koetting. “I’m thrilled to report that the Shark Ultralight’s self-cleaning brush roller is truly self-cleaning. I’ve tested the vacuum for roughly 60 days and my hair isn’t wrapped all over the brush rollers—nor have they required cleaning.”
Another standout feature is that this vacuum easily converts to a handheld vacuum that’s ideal for upholstered surfaces or vacuuming stairs. Unfortunately, it’s not a cordless model, so it’s probably not the best option for cleaning your car. As a matter of fact, this vacuum’s 25-foot-long cord is what caused Koetting to deduct a point from its final score. “I’m sure this baby gets more horsepower since it is corded, BUT I strongly believe all stick vacs should be cordless these days. I’m a little disappointed this one is corded. It defeats the convenience and compactness factor.”
But if you don’t mind a corded vacuum, then go ahead and add this vacuum to your cleaning arsenal. According to Koetting, it’s a great value considering its overall performance and special features. “$179 is not terribly pricey considering most trustworthy vacuums run a couple hundred dollars these days. This is a wonderful cost-effective option that is super reliable for sucking up every last bit of pet hair and beyond,” she says.
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Handheld vacuums have come a long way from the clunky dustbusters of yesteryear. Shark’s UltraCyclone Pet Pro is a sleek, lightweight machine that’s easy to hold and even easier to use. It only weighs 2.6 pounds, but don’t let its small size fool you—this handheld machine is a force to be reckoned with.
“This thing is an absolute beast,” raves Nicole Doster, our content director of affiliate. “I was really impressed with its suction power straight out of the gate. It suctioned up pet hair and dirt from the kitchen like a breeze. I tested it on our trickiest areas: our dark blue couch (which is notorious for collecting our dog’s tan hair), our car seats and high-traffic doorways.” According to Doster, the vacuum was able to collect most pet hair from fabric in just two passes but collected all of it in three. On tile or wood, she found that it was able to quickly suck up all pet hair in one go.
While this cordless vacuum is ideal for removing pet hair from upholstery, the car and other nooks and crannies around the house, Doster notes that she wouldn’t recommend it for larger areas. “Purely due to its size, I’d say this wouldn’t be the best tool for large carpeted areas,” she explains. “However, it’s great for spot-cleaning sections of carpet!” Additionally, the battery will only last around 12 minutes when fully charged, so your best bet is to use it for small messes and return it to the charger rather than rely on it to clean your entire house.
At $90, this vacuum may seem a bit pricey, but Doster insists it’s a purchase you won’t regret. “This handheld vacuum blows all the others I’ve used out of the water (including Dyson). Its super strong suction capabilities make it easy to clean up pet hair and other messes. I’d recommend it to anyone who has daily messes to clean who doesn’t like reaching for a larger machine,” she says.
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If vacuuming is one household chore you absolutely can’t stand, then you’re in luck. The Shark IQ Robot will do all of the dirty work for you. And when we say all of the dirty work, we really mean all of it. This robot vacuum maps your entire home so you can have it clean your entire home or individual rooms using the SharkClean app, Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. And once it’s finished or full, it returns to the self-emptying base.
As a mom of four small humans and a yellow lab that sheds like crazy, Marisa Hillman, our tester, is used to her floors always being kind of gross. She’s been running the Shark IQ constantly for several years now, and it’s great at sucking up all of the hair, crumbs and dirt that get tracked through her house. The vacuum itself is quiet as it cleans, but the self-empty feature is on the louder side. Fortunately, it only takes a few seconds to do its thing. Hillman is also impressed by how easily it goes from hardwood floors to area rugs and back again. All she has to do is empty the base once every 45 days.
Although you can set this robot to clean individual rooms, Hillman almost always selects the whole home option. She finds that in the time it takes for the robot to get the message, leave the dock and get to whichever room is in dire need of vacuuming, she could have just grabbed her cordless vacuum, sucked up the mess and put it away again before the robot even gets there. In other words, this machine is not the speediest option when it comes to spot cleaning.
Like many other robot vacuums, this Amazon vacuum cleaner costs a pretty penny, but it’s a durable and effective vacuum that’ll last for years.
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Anyone who has pets knows that sometimes accidents happen. But when they happen on the carpet, you’ll need to forgo the vacuum in lieu of a quality carpet cleaner in order to fully clean the space and prevent long-lasting odors in your home. The Shark CarpetXpert with Stainstriker will rid carpets of stains—yes, even old ones—and leave them looking good as new.
Doster was impressed with this machine right out of the box. Not only was it quick to assemble, but she was impressed by Shark’s attention to detail in designing this carpet cleaner. “There was a spot on the carpet cleaner body for all of the attachments and accessories to live and be stored,” she explains. “It really irks me when I have to find a spare place to store an extra cleaning head! All the accessories snapped securely into place.”
With so many attachments and features, Doster admits that there was a bit of a learning curve involved. But once she got the hang of all the modes and attachments, she got to cleaning. First, she gave her carpet a general cleaning using the machine’s deep clean mode and was impressed when it left her carpet looking fresh and odor-free. “There was a slight visible difference in the carpet that was deep cleaned compared to what was not, but where you really saw the results was in the dirty water tank. So gross! I felt years of pet messes lifting away,” she shares.
Next, it was on to spot cleaning a few stains around her house. She started by tackling a small, dark, recent stain with the machine’s smallest crevice tool, using it to spray a stain-fighting solution (which is a mix of Oxi and general cleaners), then scrubbing with the built-in brush and ultimately sucking it up with the head that’s built into the nozzle. “I could not believe how easy this was. I was almost embarrassed that we hadn’t been able to get the stain out before,” she says. “It only took a single pass of me scrubbing the stain to lift the eyesore out from the carpet!”
And the fun didn’t stop there. Doster went on to eliminate a stubborn pet stain that even professional carpet cleaners hadn’t been able to remove. Lastly, she tested this machine on a wet stain. “The model I have came with a specialized pet cleaner for just this issue,” she says. “When you attach the pet head, the suction component sends the wet mess directly into a smaller compartment instead of feeding it through the machine. This is smart, as it’s easier to detach the locking compartment and quickly dispose of the mess into the toilet instead of cleaning the entire machine. The cola lifted easily from the carpet and was dispensed directly into the cup. I used the spray and suction to lift and clean the carpet, and you could hardly notice a spill was there.”
Overall, Doster recommends this carpet cleaner to those hoping to deep clean their carpets without having to rent fancy equipment. However, she emphasizes the fact that this is a carpet cleaner and shouldn’t be used for pet hair as it can clog up the cleaning heads. “The included instructions specifically say to vacuum before beginning carpet cleaning. When I tested this out, I wished I had vacuumed more, because the machine was harder to clean afterwards due the amount of wet, dirty pet hair that I had to remove from the machine. Yuck,” she exclaims.
Sometimes we get our hands on a product that just doesn’t live up to our expectations. Although we tested six vacuums for this story, only five made the cut. Here’s why that sixth machine didn’t land a “best” spot:
A new vacuum is an investment. Before you buy, here are a few things to consider.
Here at Reader’s Digest, we love our pets. But removing their hair is a daily chore that we’d like to be as painless as possible. That’s why we’re constantly researching and testing the best pet hair vacuums and sharing the products that excite us the most. The best Shark vacuums for pet hair that made this list have been rigorously tested for months (and, in some cases, years) to see how effective they are at sucking up fur and hair and how they’ve held up over time. From dogs to cats and even the hair from our very own heads, our team at Reader’s Digest has worked to pluck every type of hair from every surface of our homes to help you find the best vacuum or carpet cleaner suited for your needs.
There are countless vacuums on the market that claim to be designed especially for pet owners. However, not all vacuums are created equal. In order to compile our list of the best Shark vacuums for pet hair, we tested six of the brand’s most popular models in our own homes on real pet messes. We considered features such as suction, maneuverability, cord length, weight and special features, such as lights and self-cleaning brushrolls, taking care to select machines for every budget and need. We also read thousands of user reviews to see how well these vacuums fared in the real world. Then, we got to testing, putting the machines to use in our own homes and cars to suck up pet hair. Once the results came in, we narrowed down our list to the top five Shark vacuums for pet hair to bring you only the best of the best.
You certainly can, but they may not be as effective at sucking up all of the pet hair. Shark vacuums designed specifically for pets have special features, such as PowerFins Hairpro brushrolls, which actively grip and capture stubborn hair on carpets and floors, self-cleaning brushrolls to prevent hair wrap and odor neutralizer technology to keep your home smelling fresh.
With proper care and maintenance, you can expect a Shark vacuum to last for years. Be sure to follow all of the manufacturer’s instructions, especially when it comes to use and maintenance in order to get the most life out of your machine.
