Patent Application
20180092332
This application claims priority to Australian Provisional Application No. 2015900595 filed Feb. 20, 2015, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by this reference.
The present invention relates to grooming tools and in particular to pet grooming tools.
The invention has been developed primarily for providing a grooming tool for use in grooming a furred pet and will be described hereinafter with reference to this application. However, it will be appreciated that the invention is not limited to this particular field of use.
Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of the common general knowledge in the field.
Many furred pets, such as dogs and cats, tend to moult or shed hair, which can be problematic for pet owners to clean off various household surfaces. As such, pet owners generally want to remove the loose hair from their pets in a controlled manner, commonly utilising commercially available grooming tools such as brushes or combs. However, in grooming a furred animal, there typically exists a balance between the removal of loose hair (i.e. hair that has become loose or has completely detached from the animal) and leaving the intact hair in the animals coat. For example, with traditional brushes and combs, the non-loose hair is left intact on the animal's coat, but these tools have a limited ability to remove the loose undercoat hair from the fur. As such, the use of such tools in grooming pets is excessively time consuming and ineffective as these tools do not collect loose undercoat hair.
In an attempt to selectively remove the loose hair from furred pets, some pet groomers have found that the blade from an electric clipper can be removed from the machine and utilised as a handheld grooming tool. The clipper blade, used similarly to a comb, includes a plurality of teeth and a sharpened edge, which assists in the collection of loose undercoat hair. However, the clipper blade is not designed for free use and can be difficult to grip, resulting in user fatigue in the hands and wrists.
In an effort to overcome this handling problem, some attempts have included mounting the clipper blade onto a handle, as detailed in at least U.S. Pat. No. 6,782,846.
While the use of the electric clipper blade was found to remove some of the loose undercoat hair, the sharpened edge, which forms a V-shaped forge in-between each pair of adjacent teeth, was found to pull or cut some of the intact, healthy hairs from the topcoat in use. This is caused by a reverse-scissor action between the V-shaped forge and the pet hair as the edge is drawn over the pet fur. This is problematic as the pulling or cutting of the hair causes the pet physical discomfort or pain, and the removal of the topcoat could expose the pet's undercoat or skin to external factors such as rain and/or UV radiation. This could have negative health implications in, for example, impacting upon the thermoregulation of the pet and/or burning of the pet's skin.
Furthermore, the cutting of the fur is also detrimental to the aesthetics of the pet, which can be extremely important for pets that compete in shows which judge the pet's physical appearance, e.g. conformation dog shows. Consequentially, for at least the reasons above, many professional pet groomers are wary of these grooming products and have opted not to use them.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome or ameliorate at least one of the disadvantages of the prior art, or to provide a useful alternative.
It is an object of the invention in its preferred form to provide a pet grooming product that can at least partially collect loose undercoat hair while causing minimal harm to the live topcoat hair.
According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a head for a pet grooming tool including:
Preferably, the blade edge is adapted to differentiate between intact healthy hair and loose hair of a pet, and selectively collect the loose hair when said head is drawn over pet fur.
The blade edge is preferably adapted to reduce the shear stress on individual hairs when said head is drawn over pet fur.
The plurality of teeth preferably has ends that are:
The plurality of teeth preferably have tip lengths vary in accordance with a predetermined pattern. More preferably, the predetermined pattern is an alternation between a high tip length and a low tip length.
Preferably the blade edge forms a U-shaped forge between each adjacent tooth.
In one embodiment, the blade edge is preferably substantially dulled.
In another embodiment, the blade edge is preferably substantially sharpened.
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a pet grooming tool including:
In one embodiment, the handle is preferably attached to said head such that said plurality of teeth and/or said blade edge is mounted with a leading angle of less than 90 degrees. More preferably, the angle is about 45 degrees.
In another embodiment, the handle is preferably attached to said head such that said plurality of teeth and/or said blade edge is mounted with a trailing angle of more than 90 degrees.
Preferably the handle is adapted to be grippable in a plurality of manners.
Preferred embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying schematic drawings in which:
Referring initially to
The head 1 also includes a blade edge 5 extending between at least some of the teeth, wherein the blade edge forms a U-shaped forge. In this embodiment, the blade edge 5 has been shown to form a U-shaped forge between each adjacent pair of teeth; however in other embodiments the blade edge may be provided as a U-shaped forge between only some of the teeth. In further embodiments, the blade edge may be substantially dulled to minimise the risk of cutting any live hair while allowing the discrimination of loose undercoat hair to live topcoat hair; however in some embodiments the blade may be substantially sharpened.
The blade edge forming a U-shaped forge has been purposely developed by the inventors to be able to differentiate between the intact healthy hair and the loose hair of a pet, and selectively collect the loose hair with minimal pulling, cutting or crimping of the intact healthy hair. While this edge functions similarly to the V-shaped forge of the prior art, the V-shaped forge does not differentiate the healthy and loose hair, and applies a shear force to each hair that is caught within the forge. This shear force causes the healthy hair to be pulled or cut through a reverse-scissor action as the edge is drawn along the fur of the pet. Conversely, the U-shaped forge has been specifically designed to significantly reduce shear stress inflicted from the reverse-scissor action as the edge is drawn along the fur of a pet, and instead the hairs are allowed to bend and pass underneath the forge such that they are not pulled nor cut. This is particularly advantageous as use of the U-shaped forge allows the removal of the loose undercoat while maintaining the healthy topcoat and thus minimising or overcoming the aesthetic and health issues that arise with the use of grooming tools with a V-shaped forge.
Referring to
It was surprisingly found that the head 1 and the blade edge 5 had an increased effectiveness in collecting loose undercoat hair when mounted at a leading angle of about 45 degrees relative to the handle 6, as shown in
To use the pet grooming tool, the handle 6 is gripped by a users hand and presented perpendicular to the pet fur. Due to the design of the anterior grip 7 and the posterior grip 8, the handle may be gripped in a plurality of manners in accordance with the comfort of the user. With the embodiment shown in
It will be appreciated that the illustrated embodiment provides a pet grooming product that can at least partially collect loose undercoat hair while causing minimal harm to the live topcoat hair
Although the invention has been described with reference to a specific example, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the invention may be embodied in many other forms.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015900595 | Feb 2015 | AU | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/IB2016/050617 | 2/5/2016 | WO | 00 |
