Is a Dog Coat Better Than a Cow Coat?

I didn’t think I’d be reduced to writing about the British couple who made "jumpers" from the hair of their dogs, but here I am.

By now I’m sure you’ve seen "Hair of the Dog," which appears to be circulating faster than that e-mail about Bill Gates spreading his wealth by giving out checks to people in amounts based on the number of times they’ve forwarded an e-mail.

The interesting thing is that the initial reaction of nearly every person who has written me about this or spoken to me about this is "Ewwww. That’s so gross."

I decided to turn this situation into an opportunity to talk about items such as fur coats, leather coats and wool coats, and how picking up the hair of your dog for decades to have it spun into clothing might be a little eccentric, but at least no one was harmed in the process.

Let’s deconstruct:

• The couple in didn’t take the hair from the dogs–they took it from the floor and the furniture.
• They did not breed the dogs for this purpose (the dogs, however, were purebreeds, so they were purposely bred, which I of course think is unjustifiable, but that’s another story).
• They did not appear to harm the dogs in any way as a result of this process.
  • The dogs were not skinned alive.
  • They were not anally electrocuted.
  • They were not crammed into cages for their entire lives.
  • They were not victims of steel leg-hold traps.
  • They were not gassed.
  • They did not exist solely for their hair or fur.

Why is what the couple did so "gross," when their feet are probably covered with cow skin? Why isn’t that "gross?"

Culture, of course, is the culprit here, as we just don’t do things like make jumpers from dog hair. But if you have no problem with wearing the skin of others and the hair and fur of others, you have no business ridiculing people who wear dog-hair clothing.

When I reach this part in the conversation, I am inevitably asked if I would wear a Violet Rays sweater or a Charles Hobson Booger III vest, or perhaps some Emily Fokker socks. And my answer is no. Not because of any cruelty or not, but because I don’t want people to think that I find wearing the skin, hair or fur of another sentient being acceptable. After all, if I’ll wear a Violet Rays sweater, I’ll probably won’t have any problem wearing leather pants with it.