The Sunday Post (Dundee)

Happy, snappy hounds are stylish enough for a catwalk

- By John Paul Breslin jbreslin@sundaypost.com

MEET Scotland’s most fashionabl­e dogs!

These seven stylish Maltese pooches have a wardrobe so big that their owner Fiona Gordon is running out of space to store it all.

Among the thousands of items of canine clobber in the collection, there’s an array of Christmas-themed outfits as well as Halloween costumes, raincoats, woolly jumpers and countless fashion accessorie­s.

Some of the outfits have been handmade in America and shipped over specially.

Fiona – who started buying dog clothes in 2003 when she got her first Maltese – has no idea how much she’s spent over the years, but given the amount it’s likely to be well into the thousands.

For Fiona, it started out as a necessity.

Her first pup had a heart condition which left the poor pooch more vulnerable in cold weather.

To help, Fiona bought her a jumper and coat to keep warm.

Little did she know this purchase would be the first of many as her collection of dogs – and their clothes – grew.

Fiona, 31, said: “Before I knew it, the wardrobe had grown very large.

“From shirts and jumpers, to coats and pyjamas, to hand-made Christmas dresses, made to size and sent over from America. Plus, of course, a new Halloween costume each year.

“It’s actually a bit of a joke now at our local vets. They are very disappoint­ed if the dogs ever turn up ‘naked’.”

Fiona’s pack is made up of Floee and Mya, both aged seven, three-year-old Hamish and two-year-olds Angus, Theo, Ellie and Isla.

The clothes in their huge wardrobe range in price from £5 to £45.

Fiona, who dresses her pups “a couple of times a week”, said some people think it’s wrong to put clothes on dogs, but she maintains her pooches won’t wear something if they don’t want to.

She said: “You may say they are dogs, they don’t have a choice in the matter, but it’s quite clear when they are not willing and don’t want to put something on, so they don’t. “I love my dogs and they are very well taken care of.

“I certainly don’t think that pampering them and spoiling them a bit is the end of the world.”

Fiona said some of the clothes have a practical use, too.

For example, little Isla wears pyjamas

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