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The Dyson Animal has always been billed as the vacuum to have if you own pets. We’ve wanted to try it since we first heard about it. I mean there isn’t a pet owner on the planet that doesn’t have hair, dander, and dirt issues in their home and probably a vacuum cleaner that is being pushed to its limit.
Case in point: We’ve had a Dirt Devil canister vacuum with multiple attachments for a couple of years. I can’t remember how much we paid for it, but I am positive it was more than $100 and less than $300. Meanwhile, it is constantly clogged with hair and we go through what seems like hundreds of bags. The attachment with the roller on the bottom has been broken for a quite a while. It’s all pretty disappointing considering the vacuum isn’t that old and we don’t use it nearly as often as we should. If it can’t even handle the workout we’ve been giving it, how on earth could it handle the one it should be getting?
Enter the Dyson DC17 Animal – one of the latest “Animal” installments from Dyson. It is a formidable machine – almost intimidating at first glance. It is sleek and sexy (if one can say that about a vacuum cleaner), not to mention accented in purple, which happens to be my favorite color.
It arrived at our door and was much heavier than I expected it to be. I somehow assumed that it would be light as a feather. It isn’t. The weight of it, however, does not seem to matter while actually using it. It really propels itself and feels as if you’re pushing around something that is in fact really light. How shall I describe it? If it were a car I’d say it sort of “drives” like a fancy sports car in comparison to the sedan you might be used to.
It also has some great attachments – it has all the usual suspects, but also includes two specialty features; one is a low profile traditional vacuum head that can get pretty far under our very low sitting sofas. It also has a pet hair removal attachment. This is the attachment that anyone who owns both pets and a carpet will absolutely love. To me this thing is the turbo charged Mac Daddy of hair removal heads. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want those rotating brushes touching your hardwood floor or your leather sofa. I accidentally let that happen and inadvertently discovered that it may also be a good tool for stripping the old finish off your hardwoods if you’re planning on redoing them. Thank goodness for area rugs.
There are a few things I don’t care for about the Dyson. As I mentioned earlier, it is heavy. I would say it is really heavy. That makes it a pain to take up and down the stairs. I also have a problem with the wand. It only extends to one length – long. The difficulty that presents is trying to get around corners or the top of ceiling fans. It would only work if you have very high ceilings because the wand is so long it hits the ceiling long before you can get close to the top of the ceiling fan blade. Another problem with the wand is that it is metal and creates substantial static electricity for obvious reasons – that amount of static electricity delivers a heck of a shock! An extremely unpleasant experience added to the not so pleasant experience of cleaning. [Editor's note: According to the Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI), static electricity does not generally become a problem until the relative humidity drops below 40 percent.]
When it comes to consumer goods the old adage, “You get what you pay for” generally holds true. If you have a budget of $100 for a vacuum cleaner, you get a vacuum cleaner that will work fine for a while and do a good enough job until it doesn’t. Then you’ll discover that it will cost just about as much to fix it as it would to buy a new one and you throw it away (or do what we do and put it in the basement or garage increasing your personal collection of “things-that-no-longer-work-and-we-just-can’t-throw-away”) and go buy a new one. I’ve found when it comes to vacuum cleaners, ink jet printers and cookware the less you pay for it the more you must consider it disposable.
The Dyson Animal does not fall into that category – it costs $550.00 (not including tax). It is a product that warrants high expectations and I believe it delivers! We’ve been using it for six months or so and have already saved money on vacuum cleaner bags. The promise of superior suction is as true a statement as I’ve ever known – we’ve owned many vacuum cleaners in our lives and none have performed as well as the Dyson DC17 Animal. I cannot compare it to the latest copies by well known vacuum manufacturers that claim to use the same or similar technology as the Dyson as I have not tested them (perhaps that is something for a future review – hint, hint).
I also have no knowledge of how easy or difficult the Dysons are to repair – although there are places in town that are perfectly capable (I checked). I also spoke to several places that don’t repair or carry Dyson and they are quick to tell you not to buy one for a multitude of reasons. That kind of information is suspect as far as I’m concerned since their opinion is certainly colored by the fact that they cannot make any money from you if you don’t own or purchase a brand that they sell or are familiar with repairing. We would, in fact, happily challenge any local vacuum cleaner retailer or repair shop that has a negative opinion of Dyson, but believes it sells a product that equals or surpasses the Dyson’s ability. Give us a call – we’d love to test other vacuum cleaners and publish our findings.
