Dog Wigs

Anger has erupted at the news that a laboratory in Essex has been testing wigs on dogs. The testing of clothing on animals was banned in Europe in 2004 following a number of high profile cases involving kittens in puffer jackets, hamsters wearing wellington boots and 'trout trousers'. In this latest incident the laboratory, owned and operated by rug manufacturer Wriggley's Wigs, have got around the ban by claiming that the wigs are medical appliances rather than items of clothing.

Campaigner Paddy Barker of the charity Pets Against Pullovers, wants this loophole closed. "There's nothing more shameful than seeing a Basset Hound wearing a beehive or a Great Dane in dreadlocks," she said. "It's a horrifying reminder of mankind's cruelty to his fellow creatures."

A spokesman for Wriggley's Wigs, however, remained unrepentant. "The work we are doing here is vital to so many vain and insecure middle-aged men who are going prematurely bald. No more will they have to suffer the horror of a strangely immobile, oddly-coloured toupee. Or, heaven forbid, the shame of the comically windswept comb-over. And if it means that an Alsatian has to spend an uncomfortable few minutes in an Afro, or a Doberman is spotted grinning stupidly whilst wearing pigtails or a blonde mullet, then I for one think it's worth the sacrifice."