I Tested the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog Canister Vacuum – It Performed Better than Every Single Vacuum Cleaner I've Ever Tested

I've been testing vacuum cleaners for nearly three years now. In that time, I've put dozens of vacuums from Miele, Dyson, Shark, and other brands through their paces, and it's been enlightening seeing what these cleaning titans can really offer.

Now, after testing this in a pet shelter, my own home, and our dedicated test center, I have a new favorite: The Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog. This incredible vacuum banished every single mess I threw at it with its sheer cleaning power.

So, read on to find out why this is not only the best Miele vacuum, but the most effective vacuum you could bring into your home out of the 86 we've tested at Homes & Gardens.

The One-Minute Summary

The Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog is the best vacuum cleaner I've ever used. After testing it in a pet shelter, my own home, and our dedicated test center, the canister vacuum knocked it out of the park in every test, picking up messes of every kind swiftly and effortlessly.

Its suction is incredible, reaching an airflow speed that's 10mph faster than our current top vacuum, the Dyson V15 Detect. This translates to efficient pulling up of dust, dirt, and hair – even from thick rugs and carpets – and a handheld nozzle that can dust hard surfaces better than a cloth.

It's also an absolute breeze to use, with thoughtful features like built-in attachment storage, one-handed cleaning, and being able to dock the floorhead into the canister with ease.

Its only downsides are the price – a whopping $899 in the US (but only £399 in the UK) – and the fact that hair wraps around the brushroll. The latter can be solved by a simple pair of scissors or seam ripper, but the price can naturally put people off, so if you're in the US, I'd recommend waiting until you find a stellar deal. With Black Friday sales around the corner, a great vacuum deal should be on the horizon any day now.

Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog: Specifications

Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog: Setup

Considering the bulky design of a canister vacuum, I was surprised that the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog arrived in a fairly compact box, similar to boxes I've received some of the best cordless vacuums in.

Assembly is straightforward if you've used this type of vacuum before: Attach the hose to the canister, then attach the handle, wand, and floorhead. If you follow the instructions, it'll take 10 minutes at most.

There's no battery to charge, and the filter and vacuum bag are already in place, so by that point, it's ready to use.

Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog: Design and Features

I may be a vacuum nerd, but after the 31 best vacuums I've reviewed for Homes & Gardens, I can't help but admire the slick designs of Miele canister vacuums. The Guard L1 has a glossy finish with a premium feel, and even the way it wheels around is satisfyingly smooth.

When it comes to suction, the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog outperforms every vacuum we've tested, and this isn't an accolade I give lightly.

I measured its airflow using an anemometer, and it reaches an incredible 33.1 mph at the max suction level. Our current best-on-test, the Dyson V15 Detect, reaches 23mph in comparison (granted, that's a cordless vacuum with a smaller, battery-powered motor).

You can choose between four suction modes, which aren't super clear on the vacuum itself, but are outlined in the operating manual:

1. Curtain symbol (minimum): Curtains, fabric
2. Sofa symbol: Upholstery, cushions
3. Rug symbol: Cut pile carpets, rugs, and runners
4. Flooring symbol (maximum): Hard floors and heavily soiled carpets and rugs

You set suction levels using the foot buttons on the canister, and there's a light to display which mode is activated.

The Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog includes two floorheads – a universal one for all surfaces, and the Miele TurboTeQ, designed specially for carpets and pet hair. It also includes a two-in-one upholstery and crevice tool that's stored inside the canister vacuum itself, as well as a dusting brush that's built into the handle.

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As the Miele Guard L1 is designed for pet owners it has advanced filtration, made up of the TU HyClean Air vacuum bags and an Active AirClean exhaust filter. You can buy a set of four vacuum bags and one filter for $28.99 at Miele USA or £13.99 at Miele UK. They're made of 80% recycled materials, too, so although they're disposable, the environmental impact is minimized.

This filtration system is said to achieve 99.99% dust retention – surpassing HEPA standards. Plus, the Active AirClean filter has activated charcoal that deodorizes air after it’s already gone through the vacuum bag, which majorly helps to eliminate odors as I've seen first-hand when testing the best air purifiers. It means the air that comes out of the vacuum smells fresh and free of nasty smells from pets, dust or smoke.

Miele states that the Guard L1 has been durability tested to last for a minimum of 20 years, based on the idea that we spend 37.5 hours vacuuming a year. You can find more information here, but I'll say that I've spoken to dozens of consumers who've also explained that their Miele vacuums have lasted longer than a decade, including our Head of Solved, Punteha van Terheyden.

What Is the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog Like to Use?

Immediately, it was clear that the Miele Guard L1 had been thoughtfully designed with the user in mind.

The buttons are big, durable, and easy to press with your feet without accidentally hitting the wrong one. The canister can easily be pulled using one hand, freeing up the other for opening doors or picking up objects. And the two-in-one upholstery and crevice tool is stored directly in the canister, so you don't have to carry anything with you while you clean or risk losing it whilst storing separately elsewhere in your home.

This is a major benefit to choosing one of the best canister vacuums over the upright or cordless alternatives. With other vacuums, you have to keep the attachments nearby to be able to swap them out as you clean, but the Miele Guard L1 keeps everything together neatly.

There are two floorheads, but to be honest, the universal one isn't anything special, and during testing, I found that the TurboTeQ performed better every time. And there's no need to swap it out to protect delicate surfaces (like cleaning hardwood or tile floors), as the TurboTeQ is safe to use on these surfaces, too.

I like that the floorhead slots into the back of the canister, allowing for easy vacuum storage without the hose and wand lying loose in a closet. It also means you can quickly prop it up if you need to park it mid-clean, without then having to bend down to pick it up again. This is particularly handy if you are cleaning with health conditions and need to avoid bending down, or have limited mobility in your hips and knees.

I also enjoy how the canister effortlessly glides in every direction. You don't need to turn it so that it faces the direction it's moving; it can go left to right as well as forward and back.

You can easily extend the wand by pushing on the toggle. At its longest, it almost doubles in size, and there are 20 increments before then to achieve your ideal reach. I find this super helpful, especially compared to the best upright vacuums, which have limited reach in comparison. It's great to be able to cover an entire entryway while standing in one spot.

I dive into this in more detail below, but my only gripe with the Guard L1 is that the TurboTeQ floorhead wraps with hair. In the manual, it advises to safely cut it out with scissors, which wasn't the biggest vote of confidence, but I see this as a minor inconvenience offset by the vacuum's outstanding performance...

Test 1: Flour and Sugar

I tested the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog using a half cup of flour and sugar to assess its ability to pick up fine debris and powder. This emulates dust and dead skin while being a great visual test, as we can see where residue is left behind on the floor or in the vacuum's parts.

On hard floors, when using each of the highest three suction levels, the Guard L1 picked up everything in one pass (aside from residue on a couple of sticky spots, so that was my own fault for not mopping). This is one of the best performances I've ever seen on this test, and on max mode, I really felt the high-powered motor with the brushroll spinning immensely fast.

On carpet, using suction modes three and four/max, everything was vacuumed up instantly. The floorhead gripped the carpet without too much suction, and you can adjust it if it does. Incredible performance – at this stage, I already knew it'd rank highly as one of our best vacuums for carpet.

Test 2: Pantry

I also tested the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog using a cup of lentils and cereal (20:80 ratio) to assess its ability to pick up medium and large debris.

The cereal poses the biggest challenge – we don't expect a vacuum to pick up such large pieces (it's great if they do), but it's useful to find out whether the vacuum flings them around, crushes them down, or becomes clogged by the crumbs.

The cereal pieces didn’t fit in the floorhead, but they were pushed forwards rather than being flung across the floor or crushing down and blocking up the airways, as we've seen in other vacuums like the Dyson Big Ball Turbinehead.

The suction power on offer here is immense – once I took the floorhead off and turned it to max mode, every small piece got sucked in at a rapid speed.

On carpet, thanks to the grip provided by the soft surface, the cereal pieces were able to be crushed down and sucked up easily, without any clogs or blockages. This is easily one of the best performances I've seen for this test.

Test 3: Pet Hair

I tested the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog in Bristol ARC, a local cat and dog shelter. It's how we test vacuums on real pet hair, as well as being able to clean a building with high foot traffic, that's full of dust, debris, hair, and a variety of surfaces to clean.

On the entrance mat – a rough, bumpy surface that tends to pose the biggest fur challenge for vacuums – the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog cleared most hairs after 2-3 passes, and after a few more runs, barely any visible hairs remained. One of the top three performances I’ve ever seen – similar to the likes of the Dyson V15 Detect and Shark POWERDETECT, our two best vacuums for pet hair.

On low-pile carpet, all strands of pet hair were pulled up in one or two passes, even when they were stubbornly embedded in the fabric.

On laminate flooring, everything was vacuumed instantly. Every time I passed over an area, every strand of fur, small stone, food crumb, or bit of mud was gone once the vacuum had passed just once. The suction was so strong that the laminate flooring was sometimes pulled upwards, but this didn’t affect performance.

It became a bit tougher to push forward when vacuuming a thick rug, but everything was vacuumed swiftly regardless. Even when I vacuumed things I probably shouldn’t have – like a large bit of plastic – the vacuum made a whirring sound for a second while the inlet was blocked, then sucked it up without issues. It was only on this thick rug that I needed two hands to pull the canister.

Overall, I learned that not only is the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog an outstanding pet hair vacuum – potentially one of the best-ever – it also works incredibly effectively on any surface you're cleaning, even upholstery, as I detail below.

Its only downside is that hair gets caught in the brushroll. For a pet hair vacuum, that will undoubtedly become frustrating over time as you'll have to regularly cut hair out of the roller.

However, considering the all-around outstanding performance this vacuum has, I'd say this is a trade-off that's worth it. It can be made easier, too, as a seam ripper is the perfect hair-wrap fix, safer and precise than a pair of scissors. This affordable seam ripper set at Amazon is all you need to make this task a two-minute job every time.

Test 4: Attachments

The staff at the pet shelter asked me to clean the pet hair-ridden sofas in the waiting room, as their vacuum cleaner wasn't able to. It was a stubborn surface, and for each area, I probably went back and forth around four times, but it did vacuum every pet hair, almost.

The remaining strands had to be plucked out using my fingers, and then they could instantly be vacuumed. A motorized attachment would’ve perhaps been more effective, but at least this one doesn’t damage the fabric.

Plus, I'm a big fan of the fact that the attachment is both an upholstery and crevice tool. When you turn it between modes, it blocks the air from coming in the other end, so you’re still getting the full suction.

This is a thoughtful design: You don’t have to carry anything around with you. It is extremely loud using this attachment; however, on max mode, which helps pull fur from stubborn surfaces, it reached as high as 86.8 decibels, similar to the noise of a food blender. Prolonged exposure to this level of noise can be harmful to hearing.

Another nice touch from Miele is that, as you can park the floorhead at the back of the canister, you can quickly detach these parts when you need to do some handheld cleaning:

I also used the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog to dust my bedroom, and it pulled thick layers of dust from every surface I could find, and for the first time, I felt it actually suction itself to hard surfaces like my TV and mirror.

Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog: Care and Maintenance

As the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog is a bagged vacuum, you're not able to quickly empty it after a cleaning. Instead, once the vacuum bag is full, you dispose of it and then swap it out with a new one.

While this comes with recurring costs ($28.99 at Miele USA or £13.99 at Miele UK for a pack of four bags and one filter), it does mean that the vacuum maintenance is incredibly minimal. As dust isn't travelling through loads of internal parts, you don't have to clean out the insides as you would with other vacuums.

It also means that you're not exposed to household allergens, as the bag contains all the dust and hair without you having to release it to empty.

I actually received a faulty sample at first, but doing so meant that I had a good look under the bonnet of the Guard L1, and realized how easy it is to replace the bag and filter.

The vacuum bag slides in and out easily; you don't need to follow any instructions to see how it's done. The same goes for the air filter; it pops out by pulling the tab at the top, then slots in simply by pushing it in.

I also want to commend Miele for their rapid response as soon as I'd informed them that the machine was faulty. First thing the next morning (as I'd let them know in the evening), I had a call from a Miele technician who talked me through troubleshooting steps, then, after realizing the appliance wasn't fixable, they sent a new unit within two days.

This level of customer service is something Miele consumers have reported to me previously, too, so it's not just because I was testing for review purposes.

How Does the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog Compare?

The Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog costs $899 at Miele USA, or £399 at Miele UK. Those are wildly different prices, most likely due to Miele being a German brand, and the shipping and tariff prices involved when selling in the US.

$899 is quite expensive, but only $50 more than our current best-on-test, the Dyson V15 Detect. These are two very different vacuums, as the V15 Detect is a lightweight cordless stick that offers greater convenience and takes up less space. But after testing both models myself, I can confirm that the Miele performs better, even if its price is a tad out of reach.

Alternatively, the Shark POWERDETECT Upright is another best-on-test from the 86 vacuums we've tested, costing $449.99 at full price but frequently on offer for around $340-$400. It's less versatile than the Guard L1 Cat & Dog, with a more limited reach and more weight to carry around with you, but it's a self-contained unit that can be easier to store in certain homes, and can come with more attachments depending on the model.

But while the Dyson and Shark may cost less and offer different kinds of convenience, the Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog is the most likely to last for years, potentially up to two decades. Consider it an investment, where all you'll need is to buy vacuum bags a couple of times a year.

The Miele Guard L1 Cat & Dog is undoubtedly one of the most effective vacuum cleaners I've tested, so if you can afford it (and have the space for storing it), I'd look no further.

Next, read through our tried-and-tested guide to the best Dyson alternatives, or find out more about our robust vacuum testing methodology.