mr. dyson you are a genius and a lifesaver. as you can probably imagine with 14 dogs there is a lot to suck up, much of it requiring a vacuum. historically we would need to replace our carpet vacs at least every 6 months and that was with using a shop-vac to do our hardwood floors. these were not bargain bin vacuums either – these were several hundred dollar models touting extreme sucking power. i always believed them at first and they seemed to be vacuums of their word and then time passed and they got tired, so very tired until they got so tired they died. the last few weeks of life were only possible by providing constant maintenance trying to eek out whatever suction we could get. on a brisk day in november 2006 (i remember it like it was yesterday) we broke down and bought a dyson just waiting to be disappointed. we have never been more wrong. no more shop-vac, no more maintenance, no more broken back, no more replacing vacuums every six months, no more dirt deep down in our carpets that we didn’t even know was there. this baby does it all and then some. the dyson gets everything…and i mean eeeeeverything! i’m constantly appalled by the sack of dirt we pull out of this house on a weekly basis – dave gleefully weighed a bag one week and if i’m remembering correctly it hovered around 5 lbs. that’s absolutely disgusting on one hand and yet oddly satisfying on another – heck i don’t want to be vacuuming for nothing. that’s my 2-cents on the dyson – i give it as many stars as it can get and not a single complaint. if you don’t have a dyson stop what you’re doing right now (finish reading first) and go get one – 14 dogs or not!