An attachment for a vacuum cleaning appliance includes a head and a handle connected to the head. The head includes a bristle carrier having a plurality of bristles, and a bristle cover having a plurality of apertures. A conduit is connectable to a vacuum cleaning appliance for conveying an air flow from the bristle cover towards the appliance. The head includes a suction opening of the conduit and the handle includes an air bleed into the conduit. An actuator effects relative movement between the bristle carrier and the bristle cover from a stowed configuration in which the bristles are retracted relative to the bristle cover to a deployed configuration in which the bristles protrude from the bristle cover through the apertures. A mechanism is provided for controlling the air flow through the air bleed, for example depending on the configuration of the bristle carrier and the bristle cover so that when the head is in its deployed configuration there is a relatively low air flow into the suction opening to prevent the head from being pushed down against, for example, the skin of the pet being groomed, whereas when the head is in its stowed configuration it is preferable to have a relatively high air flow into the suction opening in order to draw the hair collected between the bristles into the conduit.