Banishing the bunny hair

“Wow, it looks like something from Halo 3,” Mr. Speedy exclaimed when I first brought home a tester Dyson DC16 Animal hand vac.

While the champagne colour is pretty, and it does have a certain space age look that would help it fit in to the sci-fi video game world of Halo, I was more concerned about how it would hold up against my pet bunny than evil aliens.

With said bunny Allistair in full-on shedding mode, creating rabbit sized tumbleweeds of hair on a daily basis, I figured I’d give the vac, which is marketed for pet owners, a run for its money.

The lightweight vac, which has suggested retail of $230, comes with a motorized brush bar to help pick up all the hair off your upholstery, as well as a nozzle attachment and brush for dusting, which was perfect for keyboards.

While it did tackle hair as well as advertised, I sometimes found that the air from the running motor was enough to blow dust (or sawdust) across the room, hindering my clean up efforts.

Once the hair, bunny poop, sawdust, dust and any other dirt I could throw in the vacuum’s way were sucked up – surprisingly with no clogs, as the hair and sawdust is often enough to do in my full sized vacuum – I was pretty pleased with the canister emptying mechanism. The bagless chamber has a trigger release, meaning no fussing with all the dirt and grime.

The run time's not great - six minutes after a three hour charge. There’s no plug-in power cable, so if you’ve got a big mess, or a large area to clean, you might find the vac sputtering out before the job is done. But, all in all, it’s a nifty looking vac with powerful suction and would be great for small messes and cleaning up the car after Fido takes a ride.