I have a much simpler and cheaper solution to the problem of dog hair. You can strain all the dog hair out of the water right at your skimmer before the water gets to the filter. Just line the skimmer with one of these.
Amazon.com: Disposable Hair Net, Spun-Bonded Polypropylene, White, 100 per Bag: Office Products
At $6.00 per hundred, you just pull them out, throw away and put a new one in. They filter fine enough to remove all the hair, just be sure to change them frequently.
If you do decide to change out the filter, I would recommend a sand filter. Of the three types of filters, DE is the one that requires the most maintenance time. Back flushing and recharging takes a bit of time, and you do occasionally have to do a complete tear-down cleaning. With sand, it's back flush, rinse and run. Sand is the easiest filter to maintain, DE is the hardest. The only advantage to DE is the finer particle filtration. If you don't like your cartridge, you are going to hate DE.