Disclaimer: This post contains product supplied for review.

Bringing a dog home has been one of the most fun and frustrating adventures in recent memory. He’s awfully cute, and he’s pretty snuggly at times, too (the other night I went to sleep with his head on the crook of my arm, how sweet is that?!), but he destroys things and barks for reasons real and imaginary (more so the latter). He also sheds. A lot.

Now, this is where having a single-color pup would be vastly superior: if you have a black dog, wear black clothes and upholster your furniture in dark tones. Blonde or white, likewise. Grey? You have plenty of options to choose from. But Duncan is a tri-color and he sheds his black and white with impunity, and I just can’t see myself living in houndstooth check 24/7/365.

Fanatics might resort to daily sweeping and a lint brush in every room. We are far from fanatics. We accept the presence of dog fur in our lives as out lot. It’s life, we deal.

But there are times when we just need it gone, whether it’s expected company or a random Tuesday when I’ve had enough, and it was one of those random days when I received an email introducing the Bump It Off, billed as sometime to solve a plethora of household woes, including pet hair! That alone was enough for me to send my address for a sample.

Here’s how we’ve fared with the Bump It Off over the last couple of months for the top three uses:

• Pet hair: the silicone picks up the hair and rinse off fairly easily. While there could be, I suppose, a concern about pet hair clogging drains, for occasional touch-ups of clothes or upholstery, it probably wouldn’t be a problem. You can also use the soft bristle side to groom you pooch. Duncan seemed to like the feel of it but, like most things, he was more interested in chewing on it.
• Dishes: The Bump It Off features one side of blunt nubs and one side of soft bristles, both of which work nicely for getting food off dishes without damaging any finishes. Because the bristles and bumps are soft, though, you may need to exert a bit of elbow grease, but it’s still better than scratching or chipping enamel or other non-stick surfaces.
• Laundry: Those bristles come in handy for working spot treatments into stains or brushing away surface debris.

The design of the Bump It Off is pretty clever, with the four fingers holes on one end and an open space opposite that allows the user to hold it whichever way they find it most comfortable and useful depending on the application at hand.

While it won’t completely eradicate sponges and scrubbies from our home, I can definitely see keeping one on hand in the kitchen, laundry, and living rooms plus one in the car for wardrobe touch-ups for nights out or meetings. They are top-rack dishwasher safe and come in bright colors, in singles or two or four in a pack.

And I apologize, especially for those non-fans, if you also now have “Shake it Off” stuck in your head–it certainly makes for a memorable product name!