How to Remove Pet Hair From Clothes and Scrubs (and Your Washing Machine)

Twelve hours of feline dentals and one very worried husky, and all of that fur is about to ride home in your car.

Or it runs the other way: you pulled on fresh scrubs this morning, the dog leaned against your legs at the front door, and now your pant legs are grey with fur from the knee down. You’re due on the clinic floor at seven. As a family of veterinarians, we've done both of those drives more times than we can count.

If you need to get pet hair off clothes fast, most of it comes off in under a minute with a rubber glove or a strip of tape. The laundry is the harder fix, because water turns loose fur into wet clumps that land on everything else in the load.

Here's how we handle both in our own vet med scrubs, at the clinic and at home.

How to Remove Pet Hair From Clothes Fast

Grab whatever is closest. Each of these works on dog hair and cat hair, and each has a fabric it handles best.

1) Damp Rubber Glove

Run your hand down the fabric and the friction rolls fur into clumps you can peel away. At the clinic, a damp nitrile glove from the exam-room box does the same job. It's the best pick for fur worked into stretch fabric, where a sticky lint roller skims over embedded hair instead of lifting it.

2) Lint Roller

Quickest on loose fur sitting on the surface. It goes through sheets fast and leaves behind hair that's worked into the weave. A reusable lint roller you rinse under the tap cuts out refills.

3) Packing or Masking Tape

Wrap it around your hand sticky side out and pat the fabric. This is your lint roller when there isn't one in reach.

4) Damp Kitchen Sponge or Rubber Squeegee

Use the scrubbing side in one-way strokes. It covers big areas like pant legs and the back of a top in a few passes.

5) Pet Hair Remover Brush

The one-direction pad type with a base that empties the fur. No refills, and it fits in your locker next to your stethoscope.

Where Fur Hides and What to Keep on Hand

Use short strokes in one direction, top to bottom. Fur collects in the seams, cuffs, pocket edges and waistband, so give those a second pass. On cargo pants, check under the pocket flaps too.

Keep a mini roller or a roll of tape in your locker, your bag and your car. Hanging one off the car door handle means it's the last thing you touch before you drive to work.

If your pets shed heavily, skip the problem entirely: change into your scrubs once you get to the clinic.

Quick Reference: Which Method for Which Fabric

Why Pet Hair Clings to Your Scrubs

Static does most of the work. Synthetic fibres like polyester build up a charge, and fur sticks to a charged surface. Dry winter air and hot tumble drying both make the static cling worse, which is why your scrubs seem to attract more hair in cold months.

Surface texture matters next. Brushed, fleecy or loosely knit fabric gives hair plenty to hook into, while a smooth, tight weave lets it slide off. Wool, velvet and corduroy grab fur hard, while denim and microfibre let go of it more easily.

Then there's the animal. Fine undercoat from cats and double-coated dogs (shepherds, huskies, retrievers) works its way into fabric fibres and gets embedded. Coarse guard hairs mostly sit on top and roll off with a glove. So to get dog hair off clothes, start with a damp glove or sponge in one-way strokes. To get cat hair off clothes, glove first to lift the fine stuff out of the knit, then finish with a roller.

Older scrubs add one more problem: pilled patches grab and hold stray hairs. Not all of that fuzz is fur, either. Some is towel lint, and some is the fabric itself breaking down. For how stretch blends are put together, see our explainer on 4-way stretch scrubs.

If you wear our VetCore™ Women's Vet Med Scrub Top or VetCore™ Men's Vet Med Scrub Top, you're in VetCore™, our 92% recycled polyester and 8% spandex fabric with 4-way stretch, designed and tested by veterinary professionals. It's anti-static, which cuts down the static charge that holds fur on polyester. A damp glove pass at the end of your shift clears what's left.

Getting Pet Hair Out in the Wash

If your clothes still have pet hair after washing, the water is usually why. Wet fur gets heavier and stickier. It travels with the water from one garment to the next and clumps on whatever it touches, including the drum.

An overloaded washer makes it worse, because packed clothes can't move enough for the water to carry hair off them. Washing a hairy load without any prep can even felt fur into the fabric, so the hair is harder to get out afterwards than before.

Before the Wash

• Take off as much loose fur as you can with the dry methods above. Less hair going into the water means less hair landing back on your clothes.

• Run the dry clothes through the dryer for 10 minutes on a no-heat or air-fluff setting. The tumbling shakes fur loose into the dryer's lint filter (the lint trap). Empty it straight after. Leave compression socks out of every dryer step (more on that below).

• Take each piece outside and shake it out before it goes in the laundry basket.

• Wash scrubs apart from pet bedding, blankets and dog towels. Those carry the heaviest fur load in the house, and towels and fleece shed their own lint onto scrubs too.

During the Wash

• Run smaller loads so the clothes have room to move.

• Add an extra rinse cycle.

• Put about ½ cup of white vinegar in the rinse or softener compartment. It cuts static and relaxes the fibres so hair loosens and rinses away. It won't dissolve pet hair, whatever you've read.

• Some washer manufacturers, including Whirlpool and Maytag, warn that vinegar can damage rubber seals and hoses, so check your manual before you pour.

• Floating mesh hair catchers, sticky balls and silicone tools grab some fur in the drum. How much depends on how hairy the load is.

• Pet hair dissolver sachets need your hottest, longest cycle (85 to 95°C on brands like Vamoosh) to work, so keep them for the pet bedding load and leave your scrubs out of it.

• Skip fabric softener on any scrubs with a performance finish, since it coats the fibres. Our guide to the best detergents for scrubs covers what to use instead.

• Go by the care label for water temperature. VetCore™ goes in inside out on a cold machine wash with like colours, then tumble dries low.

After the Wash

• Tumble dry on low with wool dryer balls. The movement plus reduced static pulls fur off the fabric and into the lint trap.

• Dryer sheets help with static cling too, with the same coating caveat as fabric softener.

• Clean the lint trap before and after every pet hair load.

• If you line-dry, there's no lint trap to catch anything. Give your scrubs a quick glove or roller pass once they're dry, or put them through a 5 to 10 minute no-heat tumble.

For disinfecting and drying, our guide on how to wash scrubs goes step by step, and our guide to washing scrubs for longevity and freshness covers keeping the fabric in shape.

Pet Hair at Work: Vet Clinics, Grooming and Pet-Facing Roles

At the clinic, the fur builds up across the whole shift instead of arriving at the front door. Before you leave, do a dry-method pass, then change out of your scrubs before you get in the car. Bag the worn set separately from anything going into your home laundry.

Wash work scrubs apart from household clothes, since they carry both fur and clinic soiling. The disinfection section of our scrub washing guide walks through it, and keeping that set in its own load is one more reason every vet clinic needs dedicated vet scrubs. If that soiling includes blood, here's how to get blood stains out of scrubs or for pen leaks, how to remove ink.

Floor exams put your knees right in the fur. The VetCore™ Women's Vet Med Cargo Scrub Pants with GENU™ Removable Knee Protection and the VetCore™ Men's Vet Med Cargo Scrub Pants with GENU™ Removable Knee Protection carry our patent-pending GENU™ pads in pouches on the inside of the leg. They're flexible and shock-absorbing, and they come out before the wash: wipe them down with a damp cloth or hand wash them in warm, soapy water, then air dry.

Your scrub cap collects fur too. Here's how to wash scrub caps without wrecking them.

Compression socks pick up fur in the knit. Use the same dry methods, wash them apart from home laundry, and turn them inside out first.

Our bamboo compression socks, including the Black Bamboo Compression Socks, go in a machine wash under 30°C with like colours, then air dry. No bleach, no iron and no tumble dry, so skip every dryer step above for them. More in our guide on how to wash compression socks.

How to Get Pet Hair Out of Your Washing Machine

Fur on 'clean' clothes is the first sign of build-up. Others are clumps stuck to the drum walls, wet mats of hair in the door seal, and water draining slowly. Hair mixed with detergent residue clogs the drain pump filter, starts to smell, and keeps landing back on your laundry.

The lint trap and the drain pump filter get mixed up a lot. The lint trap sits in your dryer and catches fur every cycle, while the drain pump filter sits in the washer and collects the clumps that go down with the water.

Here's the order we use:

1. Wipe the empty drum with a damp microfibre cloth or a rubber glove. Once it's dry, a vacuum crevice tool picks up anything left.

2. On a front loader, peel back the rubber gasket around the door and clear hair and grime out of the folds.

3. On a top loader, check around the base of the agitator and the built-in lint filter, if your model has one.

4. Find the drain pump filter, usually behind a small panel at the bottom front. Put a towel and a shallow tray underneath, unscrew it slowly as water comes out, pull out the hair clumps, and screw it back in tight.

5. Run an empty hot cycle or your machine's drum-clean or self-clean cycle, with a washing machine cleaner tablet or vinegar as your manual allows.

6. Wipe the drum and door once more, then leave the door open to dry.

On the dryer side, vacuum out the lint trap housing now and then. Packed lint cuts airflow and is a fire risk, which is why the trap gets cleared every load.

Do the full washer clean monthly if you have more than one pet or wash clinic scrubs at home. Go more often in spring and autumn, when double-coated dogs blow their undercoat and shedding peaks.

Keeping Pet Hair Off Your Scrubs Between Washes

• Keep clean scrubs shut away in a wardrobe, garment bag or drawer, away from the chair or bed your pets use. Our guide to storing scrubs between shifts covers the hygiene side.

• Get dressed last, after the cuddles, feeding and walk.

• Do the morning pet time in an old hoodie or jumper, then change into scrubs.

• Brush your pet regularly, especially during heavy shedding. Grooming at home means less loose fur everywhere, laundry basket included.

• Vacuum the floor around where you dress and do laundry.

• When it's time to replace scrubs, look at the fabric face and the spec. A smooth, flat face lets go of fur more easily than brushed or fleecy fabric.

You won't get every single hair. The aim is to cut the load down far enough that one quick pass handles what's left.

Pet Hair FAQs

Does vinegar dissolve pet hair?

No. About ½ cup of white vinegar in the rinse cuts static and loosens fur so more of it rinses away, but it won't dissolve hair. Check your washer manual before you add it.

Why do my clothes still have pet hair after washing?

Water turns loose fur into wet clumps that travel from one garment to the next. Do a dry-method pass, give the load a 10-minute no-heat tumble, run smaller loads with an extra rinse, and clear the drain pump filter if it's been a while.

How do I get dog hair off clothes?

A damp rubber glove or a damp sponge in one-way strokes, top to bottom. Double-coated breeds leave undercoat in the knit, so go over seams, cuffs and pocket edges twice.

How do I get cat hair off clothes?

Cat undercoat is thin and soft, so it works its way into the fabric. A damp glove lifts it out of the knit, and a lint roller handles whatever is left sitting on top.

How do I get dog hair out of my washing machine?

Wipe the empty drum, clear the door gasket, empty the drain pump filter, then run an empty hot or drum-clean cycle. Do it monthly if you wash clinic scrubs at home.

What should I look for in vet scrubs if fur is a daily problem?

Go by the spec, not the marketing. VetCore™ is 92% recycled polyester and 8% spandex with 4-way stretch and anti-static fabric, and the VetCore™ cargo pants add GENU™ removable knee protection for floor work. You’ll still want the damp glove pass at the end of a shift.

Glove at the Door, Filter Once a Month

Keep a damp glove or roll of tape by the door and in your locker. Before a fur-heavy load goes in the washer, give it the 10-minute no-heat tumble. Once a month, clear the drain pump filter and run an empty hot cycle.

When your scrubs are due for replacing, have a look at our vet med scrubs. The VetCore™ range is designed and tested by veterinary professionals.

And if you came here with your own cat's fur on your sleeve, our cat and dog scrubs put the pets on the print instead.