Danger of Christmas outfits for dogs revealed

New research has revealed how dangerous Christmas dog outfits can be when exposed to open flames.

Raw feeding company ProDog Raw flame tested 10 outfits, bought from popular retailers and supermarkets, with both ignition and full burning times recorded.

All items ignited in between one and seven seconds, with one item fully destroyed in one minute and thirty seconds. Only three of the costumes came with flammable warnings on both the outfit label and packaging, while another three had no fire safety labelling at all, the researchers found.

One outfit was completely engulfed and burnt the tester after just 40 seconds, while plastic fibres falling from a Christmas Pudding costume continued to burn and melted through the plastic water bucket being used to catch destroyed items safely.

Three outfits only featured fire safety warnings on the packaging, which would be thrown away so the outfit could be worn. A further three outfits came with fire safety warnings on both the packaging and the outfit label.

Heidi Maskelyne, Chief Executive of ProDog Raw, said: “While dog hair and fur, like human hair, can ignite quickly if exposed to open flames, it doesn’t burn for long. When reviewing the videos the very fast ignition time of some items was concerning, but most horrifying for us at ProDog Raw was the speed at which whole outfits were engulfed in flames, with the plastic fibres in many of them creating a sticky residue which also continued to burn. Removing that from a dog if it did catch fire would be very dangerous for them and their human, and could do serious damage.

“As a nation of dog lovers we of course want them to be included in our celebrations, and we know how easy it can be to be caught up in the Christmas spirit and want to snap a cute photo for Instagram. But we hope by highlighting the very serious risk these unnecessary outfits pose to man’s best friend, owners can make safer, more informed choices this Christmas.”