How to Get Dog Hair Out of a Car: The Spring Shedding Plan

Here is how to get dog hair out of a car: work dry first, lift the hair with rubber or a clay towel, vacuum with a brush head, wipe with an interior cleaner, then towel dry. Five steps, about forty minutes for a hatchback that has been hauling a spring shedder to the park all month. Everything below comes from cleaning up after Ella, our tester, and the tools are the same ones in our dog hair remover for car collection.

The short answer

1. Dry first. Pull the mats, shake them out, and do not spray anything yet.
2. Rubber or clay lift. Drag a rubber face across the cloth in one direction so the hair rolls into ropes.
3. Vacuum with a brush head. The bristles pull the rest up out of the weave.
4. Interior cleaner. Cloth gets a carpet and upholstery product, leather and plastic get an all surface interior cleaner.
5. Towel dry. A thick microfiber towel takes the moisture and the last of the fuzz.

Why spring is the worst

Double coated dogs drop their winter undercoat as the days get longer. That undercoat is the fine, soft layer under the guard hairs, and it comes out in clumps for a few weeks each spring. It is not the long hair you see on the seat that causes the trouble. It is the short fuzz that weaves itself into cloth and carpet and laughs at a normal vacuum. Most owners will tell you the car is at its worst between the first warm week and the end of May. That is the spring shedding dog problem in one sentence: more hair, finer hair, and it arrives all at once.

Step 1: Start dry

Wet hair mats into fibers and stays there. So before any bottle comes out, pull the floor mats and beat them against the garage wall. Open every door and shake out the cargo liner. Run your hand over the seats to find the drifts: the seam where the seat back meets the base, the gap beside the console, the cargo tie downs.

Step 2: Lift with rubber or a clay towel

Rubber grabs hair. A dish glove works, a rubber squeegee works better, and the 3D Detailing Clay Towel works better still because it is a face of polymerized rubber bonded to a full size microfiber towel. It is sold for pulling bonded grit off paint, glass and trim, and 3D rates it for up to 50 vehicles between rinses. Keep one for interiors. Drag it dry across the cloth in one direction and the undercoat rolls up into ropes you can pick off by hand. Ships separately from Pal Automotive.

Step 3: Vacuum with a brush head

Now the vacuum. Use the crevice tool on the seams first, then switch to a brush head for the open cloth. The bristles agitate the weave while the suction pulls, which is the part a flat nozzle misses. Go slow and go against the nap of the fabric. Do the seat rails and the cargo area last, because everything you lifted in step two migrates down there.

Step 4: Interior cleaner

Cloth and carpet first. The 3D GLW Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner, 64 oz is a stain extractor with odor eliminating enzymes, which matters when the seat smells like wet dog and not just looks like one. The GLW Carpet and Upholstery Wash pint is the concentrated version of the same idea if you would rather mix your own. For deep pile carpet, the P&S Upholstery Shampoo is a foaming cleaner where the foam loosens the dirt from the base of the pile instead of soaking it. Spray, brush lightly, and blot with a towel. Each ships separately from Pal Automotive.

Leather, vinyl and plastic get the P&S Xpress Interior Cleaner. P&S says it cleans leather, vinyl, plastic, rubber and other interior materials without the risk of discoloration, and it leaves no residue, so the dog does not slide around afterward. The pint lives in the glovebox. The gallon is the garage size, and the 5 gallon is for the person who details the neighbors' cars too. All three ship separately from Pal Automotive.

Step 5: Towel dry

Do not let cleaner air dry on cloth. Blot it with a thick microfiber and the towel picks up the last of the fuzz along with the moisture. The 3D HYDRO-FIL 20 x 40 in drying towel is a 1200 GSM microfiber, blended 80 percent polyester to 20 percent polyamide, and 3D rates it at roughly two gallons of absorbency. That is the seat and cargo floor towel. The gray 20 x 24 in HYDRO-FIL is the same towel in a size you can control one handed for door jambs, sills and the console. Both ship separately from Pal Automotive.

Keep it off the seat in the first place

A washable seat cover or a hammock style cover is the easy win. Hair lands on the cover, the cover goes in the washing machine, and the seat under it stays clean. Brush the dog in the driveway before the ride so the loose undercoat lands in the yard instead of the vents.

Paws bring in as much as the coat does. Cleo&Hooman Scrub-a-Pup-Pup is a foaming paw cleanser in a 200 ml bottle with a silicone brush head built into the pump, so four muddy feet get done at the tailgate before they touch the carpet. For the full bath the night before a trip, the Spritz Dog Shampoo and Conditioner Duo shampoos and conditions in one pass and smells of mandarin orange and basil, which is a big improvement on wet dog. Both ship separately from Cleo and Hooman.

Keep a Tire Stack Poop Bag Holder in the door pocket. We design and 3D print it in house in Malvern, it looks like a stack of race tires, and it means the pit stop happens at the rest area and not on the floor mat. And since the dog sat still for all of this, a piece of something from our freeze-dried dog treats is the fair trade. Single ingredient, no crumbs in the seat.

FAQ

Leather or cloth, which is easier? Leather. Hair sits on top of it and a damp microfiber with interior cleaner takes it off in one wipe. Cloth holds the undercoat in the weave, which is why steps two and three exist.

Does a lint roller work? On a light coat, yes, for the top layer. On a spring shed it clogs in about three passes. Rubber pulls more hair per pass and does not run out.

How often should I do this? A quick rubber lift and vacuum after every park run during the shed, and the full five steps once at the end of it. Once summer coat is in, once a month keeps up.

If the car is being built around the dog rather than cleaned up after one, read The K9 Cruiser Build next. And every tool on this page is gathered in one place in our dog hair remover for car collection.