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Trying to avoid brand name, but here are a few pics of the working end of the tool. It's similar to a flea comb, actually...

enter image description here enter image description here

It's a remarkably effective grooming tool, getting down to loose hair in the undercoat which simple brushing doesn't always reach.

But every time it's been mentioned in the past several years, someone chimes in with a claim that to be that effective it must be cutting hair, or pulling it out. However, nobody seems to actually have a trustworthy citation for that claim.

Running it through my own hair certainly doesn't seem to snag or cut, but of course humans don't have an undercoat and that's what the device is specifically designed for.

So what I'm looking for is something that will convince me these claims are actually well founded. My own experience says they aren't, with the possible exception of folks who massively overgroom their cats.

I'm not saying. "put up or shut up" -- folks are entitled to opinions in the absence of clear evidence -- but I'd sorta like to see us reach some consensus on this question if possible. My experience says that it's a good tool being slandered, but that's only one non-scientific data point.

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  • It would improve your question if you linked to some information about the Furminator and maybe some of the claims you refer to.
    – Elmy ♦
    Commented Jul 10 at 5:39
  • Claims have appeared here on SE in most recent discussions of cat grooming. And SE is inconsistent about linking to/pointing to product details, so I hesitate to do so. I can add some description, but unless people have seen the particular product or close clones I'm not sure that will actually help. Let me think about how to edit this... Or feel free to propose an edit.
    – keshlam
    Commented Jul 10 at 6:49

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Personally, I don't see how the blade design would even be capable to cut or rip out hair.

In order to rip out hair, it would need a strong grip so hairs can actually get stuck in the blade, and in these close up shots we can clearly see the spacing being far too wide to allow this.

We're using a similar tool, and the fact that one can clean off the fur from the tool by simply blowing on it or by a light stroke of the finger tells me there is pretty much no grip strength.

Now this is just a guess, but if you ask me the way this comb works is by leveraging electrostatic charge to a considerable degree.

As far as cutting, this would need a sharp edge somewhere, but again in the close up shots we can see there is no such edge, definitely not in the direction the tool is supposed to be run through the fur.

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