Spinning Dog Hair

Spinning dog hair is similar to spinning Angora. It’s a slippery fiber with no scales to catch and link together. It needs to be spun rather tightly to hold together.  It usually doesn’t need to be carded unless you are blending it. For most of my dog hair spinning, I do blend in a little sheep wool to help bind it together. While you can spin pure dog hair, it has to be spun tightly to keep it from pulling apart. If you only use a little wool such as 25%-50%, it will hold together better and the wool will hardly be visible in the final product. Another reason to blend is that dog hair doesn’t have the elasticity that wool has. A garment made of 100% dog hair might stretch and sag.

 This is a little bag I knitted from Shetland sheepdog hair and wool.

Almost any long haired dog produces hair that can be spun. If you look closely, you’ll see that the dog produces two types of coat. The outer coat is coarser and stiffer than the soft, downy undercoat. The undercoat is what sheds off the dog and what we want for spinning. I imagine you could use the outer coat the same as some outer coats from other animals for such things as rugs and rougher use textiles. We’ll focus on the undercoat here.

A fiber of two inches is the easiest to work with, but most dogs that have shorter hair also have an undercoat. A few don’t such as the Doberman. The shorter hair can be spun but it must be blended with wool. It also may shed if the hair is too short.

Some favorite breeds of dogs for spinning hair are Great Pyrenees, collies, Shelties, golden retrievers, old English sheepdogs, Newfoundlands, Samoyeds, American Eskimos.and my personal favorite, the Border collie.These are only a few of the breeds that provide spinning fiber. Mixed breeds can provide spinnable hair too.

To start your dog hair project, you first need to collect the hair. It’s nicer if the dog is kept clean. You can spin it first and then wash it, but the hair can be washed when it’s off the dog too. You can put it in a mesh bag and wash gently.

Hair that has been brushed off the dog is better than hair that has been cut. You don’t need a lot of hair for your smaller projects. One or two ounces can be blended with wool and be enough for a hat or mittens. A sandwich bag stuffed with hair weighs about half an ounce.

Now you are ready to blend and spin. If you’re using hand cards, one little trick is to put the fiber on in sections. If you are blending 50%, load half of the card with dog hair and the other half with wool. It will be mixed as you transfer your fiber from one card to the other.

Dog hair, like Angora, will “bloom.” It creates the soft “halo” by actually working its way out of the yarn and shedding. Some people like the halo, but some aren’t so crazy about the shedding. 

I have done what is called “abusing” the yarn with my Angora yarn and imagine it would work the same with dog hair. I have experimented with felting dog hair and it worked the same as Angora.I know it sounds terrible, but it hardens the yarn slightly and reduces the shedding.

Wash the yarn, not too gently in warm water and a bit of dish soap. You can actually shock the yarn by having a pot of really hot water and cold water and dipping in one and then the other. Rinse clean and squeeze the water out. Take the skein by one end and slap it hard on the counter a few times. Reverse the skein and slap the other end. Do this a bunch of times and then lay it out to dry. Now you can knit or crochet away.

If you decide that spinning dog hair isn't for you, you can find plenty of spinners like me who will do it for you for a nominal fee.