ohmidog!

It’s not something the typical dog owners does, but with enough sheddings and some hard work you can make a shawl out of your shiba inu, a cowl out of your collie, a scarf out of your Schipperke, or even an afghan out of your Afghan.

Denise Rothwell of Great Falls, Montana, has turned the fur from her two Great Pyrenees — Bella and Windsor — into scarves and throw blankets, with a litle help from her mother.

Shirley Rothwell spins Bella and Windsor’s hair into yarn, and her daughter does the knitting. Denise got the idea from a book, and asked her mother to make the yarn.

“The fur is white and beautiful. Great Pyrenees are double coated, with a long top layer and a short downy under layer. It’s really quite pretty. I first made her a scarf and I am working on an afghan,” Shirley told the Great Falls Tribune.

Shirley, with Bella and Windsor at her side, demonstrated how to spin shed dog hair into yarn over the weekend at the Montana State Fair.

Denise combs her dogs on a regular basis and collects the hair in plastic bags. She turns it over to her mother, who washes it with Dawn dishwashing soap and places it in a lingerie bag to soak in 140 degree water.

Dawn, Shirley said, takes out that wet dog smell.

Shirley has started an afghan made up of the coats of all six of her Great Pyrenees her daughter has owned. Denise sees it as a way to preserve her memories of them.

“Some people keep ashes or other mementos for their pets, and this is my memento,” Denise said.

(Photo: Larry Beckner / Great Falls Tribune)

Camp Bow Wow in Columbia — always happy to have your dog come in for a stay — is now accepting just your dog’s hair as well.

One of many groups and businesses across the country that have joined in the effort to collect dog and human hair to help combat the gulf oil spill, Camp Bow Wow is offering several options.

You can bring your pup in for a de-shedding treatment, or collect your dog’s shed hair and drop it by. Also, Camp Bow Wow will accept donations of human hair, if you know of any hair salons or barbers that want to pitch in.

The hair — as we explained last week, and as the video above shows — is being used in the making of oil booms that are being used to help absorb the oil.

Feathers, fur and other natural fibers, such as used nylon stockings are also used to make the booms, and Camp Bow Wow is accepting donations of those as well.

All the donated items collected — as well as cash contributions — are being passed on to Matter of Trust.

The friendly folks at FURminator keep making a great, if pricey, product better — and ever more frustratingly difficult to get out of the package.

The product I was sent — the new fur-ejecting FURminator with an improved handle — worked amazingly well. They’ve improved the fur-ejecting technology, so, unlike with earlier models, hair shoots right out of the deshedding tool with the simple push of a button. The new handle is contoured to better fit the hand.

But the packaging! Why manufacturers insist on encasing their products in thick, clear plastic cocoons that take a hacksaw to open, I’ll never understand.

Perhaps it is to suggest that their product is so valuable it rates a hermetically sealed shroud that can be opened only by a team of physics majors.

Once I did manage to free the Deluxe FURminator from its package, which also featured a twisted wire to hold it firmly into its mold, it was smooth sailing.

As with earlier versions, it did a magnificent job of removing my dog’s loose hair and undercoat. In 15 minutes, not counting the 30 minutes it took to open it, I’d removed enough hair to fill a grocery bag. With the new and far more comfortable handle, I could have filled enough for two more bags, but I figured Ace might want to keep a little undercoat for winter.

The small “Deluxe Collection” FURminator, with fur ejector, retails for around $50, and the FURminator website lists some of the stores in which you can find it. The Deluxe Collection went on sale in pet stores today.

As for my now slightly used model, I repackaged it as best I could and it will be awarded — by Santa himself — to a worthy dog at the upcoming Pet Photos with Santa event at Riverside Park in Baltimore. (Saturday, Dec. 12 from 10 a.m. to noon). Proceeds from the event go to the Franky Fund for the care of sick and injured animals at Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS).

Two new variations on the FURminator are hitting the market, and after sampling them both, I can report that neither is as revolutionary a product as the original. Then again, it’s hard to improve on perfection.

The new models are a double-edged version of the deshedding tool that FURminator says works twice as fast as the original, and an ejectable version that, with the push of a button, moves dog or cat hair out of the blade.

The push button ejector does work — though it sometimes takes repeated pushes — and it frees you from having to manually clear the blade after every five to ten strokes. On the other hand, that wasn’t much trouble to begin with. It only took one quick swipe of the hand, which you need to do anyway if you’re bagging your sheddings.

Having a small yard and a big dog, that’s often what I do; otherwise, as much fur as the FURminator removes, you’ll soon be ankle deep in it. (Better yet is to take dog and FURminator to the park and let the fur fly; the birds like to use it for nests.)

As for the double-bladed FURminator, I found it more trouble than it’s worth — namely because fur can’t be removed from its blades with a simple swipe of the hand. Instead you’ve got to navigate a finger between the two blades. Even if it is removing twice the shedding, the blade clearing slows the process down more than it speeds it up. And it also means you have twice the number of blade covers to misplace, as I seem to do every time I use it.

That said, FURminator remains king in my book, in terms of grooming your dog and cutting down on the in-house shedding. The only down side? Expect to pay $50 or more, depending on the size you need.