Lynn,   I bought a Sears Kenmore cannister last year. Love it! It has 3-5 filters on this new one. I think it filters the air going in and the air going out of the machine. It has a true hepa filter too. Plus you can use cloth or paper bags in it. Just in case you wanted to look into.   tracy --- On Tue, 1/27/09, Lynn wrote: Guess we better start looking into a new vac, really soon. We were thinking of getting that Eureka Pet Lovers Vacuum that our daughter and her boyfriend were raving about at Christmas, but I want to look into more of them, before making that purchase. I really like my Sharp we bought years ago, but it has seen its days.