Choosing an effective air purifier for a pet doesn't have to be complicated. Other than love, your furry pet probably produces a great deal of hair, dander, and/or odor.

So to be effective a purifier needs to be able to handle those pollutants and more. Selecting an air purifier with the following 6 features will insure that you have the best air purifier for you and your pet.

1. Filter Airborne Hair and Dander--Pet hair is easily seen, but dander (small flakes of dead skin that is constantly being produced) is not. The protein that is an essential element in the dander is what triggers symptoms in those who suffer with allergies and asthma. So to be effective the purifier needs to filter the big particles like hair as well as the sub-micron size particles like dander.

2. Remove Odor--Odor is probably one of the toughest problems to control with many pets. If your pet makes a mistake on the carpet while you are away, once it has dried it may be difficult to find. And even after finding it, if you have carpet and the spot has soaked through into the padding beneath, it is sometimes near impossible to remove the spot (thus the smell) completely.

Constant filtration of your air buys you time to find and neutralize the spot while still enjoying fresh, clean air in your home.

3. 24 Hour Coverage--Your pets go 24 hours a day, and so an air purifier needs to go 24 hours a day as well. A cleaner with a split capacitor motor means it is designed to run safely and economically continuously without stopping. Look for a motor that is rated for continuous high revolutions per minute and long life duty.

4. Steel Housing--If your purifier is to last around pets it needs to be tough. Steel housing means that it will be all but impossible for your pet (or your toddler) to chew off pieces of the purifier and choke, or worse.

And steel housing, unlike plastic purifiers that sometimes off-gas fumes when the motor heats up, means that the only by-product produced will still be fresh, pollutant-free air.

5. Filter Household Pollutants--Since you're considering air filtration, it seems prudent to consider filtering pollutants other than ones that are pet-related. Consider a filter that will also remove household dust, dust mites, mold and mildew spores, bacteria and viruses because clean air is good for humans too.

6. HEPA Technology--High efficiency particle arresting (HEPA) technology is used by hospitals to insure clean air. This is because by definition 99.97% of pollutants that are .3 microns or greater are removed from the air.

So what does this really mean? If there are 10.000 sub-micron size pieces of pet dander floating in your air, a HEPA air purifier will remove 99.997 particles down to .3 microns in size leaving your air, what hospitals define as clean.