How to Get Dog Hair Off Blankets, Comforters and Sheets (Including in the Dryer)

The quickest way to get dog hair out of a blanket is to take as much off as you can while everything is still dry. Give the blanket a hand pass with a damp rubber glove or an electrostatic mitt, tumble it in the dryer on air or no heat before you wash it, empty the lint trap, and only then put it in the washer. Wool blankets are the exception: they skip the dryer entirely.

The same routine works for cat hair, comforters, duvet covers and sheets. What changes from one to the next is how much hair the weave holds and whether the fabric can take a dryer at all.

Why you should never start with the washer

Water makes pet hair harder to shift, not easier. The American Kennel Club puts it bluntly in its guide to cleaning dog beds: mixing dog hair with water "causes it to clump up and clog your machine." Wet hair mats together and sticks to the drum and the door seal, where it can end up on the next load.

So the order is dry first, wet second. Everything below follows from that.

Step 1: A dry pass by hand

Take the blanket outside and shake it hard first if you can. It costs nothing and it clears the loose layer sitting on top.

Then work the surface. A plain rubber dish glove, dampened and dragged across the fabric, gathers hair into rolls you can pick off. Hill's Pet Nutrition recommends exactly this, and it's a genuinely good first tool: most kitchens already have one.

Where it gets slow is scale. A throw blanket is one thing; a queen comforter is a lot of square footage, and a damp glove has to be rinsed as it loads up. For large, fuzzy surfaces we'd point you to a dry electrostatic pet hair remover glove. The fabric face builds static as you stroke, hair collects into a strip in the middle of the palm, and you peel it off and keep going. It rinses clean and doesn't use refills. If you only deal with one small throw, though, the dish glove is enough — you don't need to buy anything.

A lint roller has its place here too, mostly on sheets. Smooth cotton or percale doesn't hold hair deep in the weave, so a roller clears it in a few passes. On fleece or a fluffy blanket it fills up almost immediately.

Step 2: Tumble it before you wash it

This step is easy to skip and costs nothing. Put the blanket in the dryer, dry, before it ever sees water. Oakland Veterinary Referral Services describes it as throwing stubborn items "into the dryer first before you wash them," and adds: "Air or low is fine–no heat necessary." Hill's gives a time for clothes — about 10 minutes — and the same idea carries over to anything that tumbles freely in the drum.

The tumbling loosens hair from the fabric and the airflow carries it to the lint trap. When the cycle finishes, empty the trap.

If you own wool dryer balls, add them to this pre-wash tumble. Hill's suggests reusable dryer balls to reduce static electricity and help loosen hair, and OVRS mentions wool dryer balls as a way to collect hair in one place. There's no published number on how much more hair they catch, and the tumble works without them — but they add no cost per load once you own them, and a bulky blanket benefits from something breaking up the folds.

Give a comforter room. If it fills the drum wall to wall, it won't tumble, and the step does very little. Big comforters that won't move freely in a home dryer are better handled with a thorough hand pass and, if you're at a laundromat anyway, a larger machine.

Step 3: Wash — then clean up after the wash

Now wash as the care label says. A few things help with pet-hair loads specifically:

• Wash the dog's blankets on their own rather than with your clothes.
• After the cycle, wipe out the drum and door seal. The AKC suggests checking the filter and wiping the rubber seal "to remove any debris or hair," and OVRS suggests a paper towel or damp washcloth, or an empty rinse cycle before the next load.
• If you wash pet bedding often, look at the washer's filter more often too. Our guide to keeping pet hair from clogging your washing machine covers where it collects.

Step 4: Dry, then finish

Dry as the label allows, with the dryer balls back in if the fabric can take heat, and empty the lint trap again at the end. If a few hairs survive, do one more quick glove pass once the blanket is fully dry. Hair lets go of dry fabric much more readily than damp fabric, so don't bother chasing it while the blanket is still warm and slightly humid.

Different fabrics, different rules

Fleece. Fleece is the worst offender because it holds static and the pile grabs hair. It responds well to the dry tumble and to an electrostatic glove. For the main dry after the wash, follow the label's heat setting; many fleece labels call for low heat.

Wool blankets. Skip the dryer altogether, including the pre-wash tumble. Woolmark, the wool certification organization, is clear: "Avoid putting wool blankets in the dryer, as it can destroy the softness and shape of the wool blanket." Where the label says machine-washable, it recommends the gentle wool cycle, cold water and a wool-specific detergent, then drying the blanket flat over a line. For hair, rely on shaking it outside and a hand pass with a glove.

Comforters and duvets. If there's a cover, the cover is what goes through Steps 1–4. The insert rarely needs a full wash; a hand pass across both sides is usually enough between washes.

Sheets. The easiest of the lot. A roller or glove pass, a short no-heat tumble, then a normal wash.

The dog's own blanket. This is the one worth doing most often. The AKC's dog-bed guide cites CDC advice to wash dog bedding weekly. Keeping it on a weekly schedule also stops hair from building up in the first place, which makes every other step shorter.

Keeping hair off the bed in the first place

Two things cut down how much you have to do. The first is a washable throw on the spot where your dog or cat actually lies — it takes the hair so your comforter doesn't, and a throw is far easier to put through this routine than a king comforter. The second is brushing your pet, which catches loose coat before it lands anywhere. Our piece on reducing shedding at the source goes into how often and with what.

If you'd rather compare tools for bedding side by side, see the best pet hair removers for bedding, blankets and duvets.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does the dryer trick work for cat hair too?

A: Yes. The routine is identical for cat hair: dry hand pass, no-heat tumble, then the wash.

Q: My comforter is too big for my dryer. What now?

A: Do a thorough hand pass on both sides, shake it outside, and wash it as the label says. If you use a laundromat, a large-capacity dryer lets it tumble properly for the no-heat step. Cramming it into a small drum does little, because it can't move.

Q: How do I get dog hair out of a wool blanket without ruining it?

A: Keep it out of the dryer. Shake it outdoors and go over it by hand with a damp rubber glove or an electrostatic mitt. If the label allows machine washing, use a gentle wool cycle in cold water with a wool detergent and dry it flat, as Woolmark advises.

Q: Will all this hair damage my washing machine?

A: Hair clumps when wet and collects in the drum, the door seal and the filter. Removing most of it dry first, and wiping the seal and checking the filter after pet-bedding loads, is what the AKC and OVRS both recommend.

Sources

• American Kennel Club — How to Clean Your Dog's Bed and Why It's Important (https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/home-living/how-to-clean-a-dog-bed/)
• Oakland Veterinary Referral Services — How to Remove Pet Hair from Your Laundry (https://www.ovrs.com/blog/pet-hair/)
• Hill's Pet Nutrition — Getting Rid of Pet Hair Around the House (https://www.hillspet.com/pet-care/routine-care/pet-hair-home-removal-tips)
• Woolmark — How to wash and dry wool blankets (https://www.woolmark.com/care/wash-dry-wool-blankets/)