Product Review

After reading about the Furminator on Nina's Story I decided to look into a similar Deshedder.  I looked up the Furminator and was not impressed with the price tag of ~$50.  But Dexter looked like a woolly mammoth and I really wanted him to look nice for show season, as short as it may end up being.  I didn't want to clip him, not just yet anyway, mostly because I've never had to body clip a horse and was afraid I'd make him look worse. 

So I looked around and found a lot of shedding combs similar to the Furminator and ended up getting the Andis Power Deshedder.  It has a little motor that is supposed to vibrate.

I got it for about $20 online and figured it was worth the extra bucks if the vibration helped loosen more hair. 

So first, the pluses:

It worked great, the first stroke was full of hair.  It was quick and easy, and unlike shedding blades and curry combs it holds the hair in the comb so it doesn't fly all over you and your clothes.  Dexter didn't seem to mind it at all.  I could see the fine metal teeth bothering some more sensitive horses but Dexter just sat there calmly chewing.  I think the vibration actually calmed him a bit.  It took the same amount of time as it would if I curried him.  And I took it home and used it on my dog and took off twice as much hair as I did with Dexter.

The negatives:

It works best on a dirty horse. Once you go over an area, if you try to go back over you don't get much hair even if you can easily pull it out by hand.  I think the tangles of an un-groomed horse help grab the hair.  The vibration does nothing to help with getting more hair.  I tried it with the motor on and off and no difference.  It did seem to calm my dog and horse down though.  But next time I'd skip that option. 

Overall I love it, it works well, is much cleaner and no more sneezing every time I groom him.  I can't use it every day but once a week seems to really help out a lot.  I think it will cut down on his shedding time quite a bit and he already looks much better than a few weeks ago. I also swear it makes him look shinier... but I'm sure that's in my head.