Handspun dog hair is often known as 'chiengora', a word coined from the french word 'chien', which means dog, and the word 'angora', the soft fur of the angora rabbit.

If you are interested in learning to spin your own pet's hair, I recommend the book Knitting With Dog Hair: Better A Sweater From A Dog You Know and Love Than From A Sheep You'll Never Meet" by Kendall Crolius. It's hard to find, but worth the search!

Dog hair is very soft and fine, and therefore much more challenging to spin than wool. It knits up similarly to mohair or angora yarn, and with time develops a thick halo to the point that it can look and feel like fur.

A few dog hair facts:

• When made from the soft undercoat, dog hair yarn can be up to 4 times warmer than wool.
• Dog hair has been used historically by the Native Americans of coastal British Columbia for their blankets, as well as by the Scandinavians and Russians for soft slippers and sweaters that supposedly warded off rheumatism.
• When properly cleaned, it does not smell like dog when wet. However, every now and then I do come across dog hair that is so saturated with dander and dirt I cannot clean it without destroying the hair for spinning.