Animal fashion’s a pet hate

So, if TV advertising and dire warnings on all fronts haven’t yet encouraged you, this far into the month, to go sober for October, perhaps you’d care to turn your energies to more charitable measures instead and adopt a rescue dog?

October is apparently International Adopt A Shelter Dog month and a very worthy cause that is, too, even for catlovers like me. Adopt a Shelter

Cat month is apparently June but I daresay nobody’s going to quibble at this nearly goodwill-festooned time of year if you rock up to your local rescue centre with good intentions and a burning desire to change the life of your very own Tiddles or Felix.

Having said that, I reckon these big-hearted and well-disposed charities should take a very close look at some of those offering a forever home to some cute terrier or big butch Bernese.

I realise there are very strict requirements and guidelines in place to cover all major food groups but I would hazard a guess that few of these deal with people who want to wear the same jumper as their dog.

I should clarify – not the exact same, actual jumper, akin to a kangaroo carrying a joey, which would be a form of togetherness that is definitely a bridge too far. Yet it’s bad and weird enough when you look at what is actually on offer.

This is not about jumpers with a dog on them, like those sheep-festooned garments once pioneered by the late Princess of Wales.

Fashion chain H&M, in conjunction with no less an iconic brand than Pringle of Scotland, beloved of flamboyant golfers the world over, has come up with a collection of matching sweaters for dogs and their owners to wear. Presumably together.

If you are old enough to remember the 1980s sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles, think the odd couple Howard and Hilda who tended to sport identical Norwegian sweaters, long before The Killing’s Sarah Lund got a look in.

It is a concept that knocks the classic Billy Connolly sketch about the strange wee catalogues that sell The Big Slipper and the Dog Bag – a bag into which you can actually put your dog – into a cocked hat. Though if this sartorial abomination takes off in a big way, it can surely only be a matter of time before matching berets, hoodies and trilbies hit the market. And I know – don’t ask how; it involved petty theft – that there are already such high-end accessories as tie-on towelling dressing gowns for dogs.

I love animals but I have never felt the need to carry them around in diamante-encrusted designer handbags or prise them into get-ups that make them look ridiculous.

Except, perhaps, some of those wee tartan raincoats that do, I will admit, keep out the Scottish weather and look quite fetching on little dogs of a feisty nature.

But matching jumpers? Could you be tempted into “an autumnal mix of classic mustard, dove grey and biscuit brown, shot through with unexpected flashes of acid yellow”? It makes it sound like a knitted version of a hi-vis vest.

And then put your dog into the same thing? What, I ask myself, can be lacking in someone’s life that they find it necessary to don the traditional argyles, intarsias and jacquards to match with Patch, sport the same print as Prince or share polka dots with Spot? And at only £19.99 a pop. For the dog too.

As a saving grace, however, these garments are apparently constructed of eco-friendly recycled polyester and organic cotton. I can just see Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion calling off the mass demos to queue round the block for that.

Cats, of course, are a different kettle of fish, or something. You would never catch any self-respecting cat putting up with any of this fashion slavery. I once had the dubious pleasure of trying to get my world-weary tabby into a cat medical vest following a minor surgical procedure. I am surprised to this day that I am here to tell the tale.

The online advert that pictures a cat actually wearing this thing – I can only assume it was computer-generated – has the animal looking out at you like Angelina Jolie channelling her inner Maleficent.

But then, cats get a bad rap when it comes to showing the love – they’re supposed to be much more aloof than their sloppily adoring canine counterparts and only in it for the prime sleeping sites (the human bed) or unlimited supplies of allegedly gourmet goop.

Oregon State University, however, has news for us all. Cats really love their humans – they bond with their people with similar “attachment styles” that dogs and even children lavish upon their caregivers. So there.

The authors of this report claim that we may be “underestimating cats’ socio-cognitive abilities” but, trust me on this, anyone with any sense of self-preservation will never, EVER, underestimate anything about a cat. Especially its willingness to wear a sweater, let alone a matching one…

Matching sweaters for dogs and their owners

Picture: Getty. A Pomeranian dog in a special Louis Vuitton bag during Lisbon Fashion Week.