What is the difference between hair and fur on a dog

If a dog is double-coated, the undercoat will be a finer texture than the overcoat. This makes the shedding process easier after the cold months. Hair has a tendency to be longer and finer or can veer toward wavy or curly. Curly hair is more likely to trap dander and dead hairs inside the coat. This why many believe dogs like the Poodle to be hypoallergenic. Not only do the tight curls lock carriers of common allergens inside the coat—dead hairs and dander.

These dogs also have longer stages of anagen than other breeds. This is why many think these dogs will not irritate those with allergies. Breeds that shed less or have a coat that retains loose or dead hairs are an allergy sufferers best bet. These dogs also have less water resistant oils on their skin than other sporting breeds. However, just as there is no real chemical difference between hair and fur.

There is no such thing as a completely hypoallergenic dog. A company called Allerca developed a single line of cats with a natural genetic mutation that held no Fel d 1 protein—the protein found within cats that fires up allergy symptoms. However, the company stopped operating under the Allerca domain in Some breeds of cats are considered low allergy because they do not produce enough Fel d 1 protein to be considered allergenic.

Unfortunately for the dog lovers with allergies, all dogs produce dander and have proteins in their saliva that will make your eyes itch and your throat scratchy. The best way to keep your allergies at bay with a dog is regular bathing and brushing. This removes dander and dead hairs. Fur is the more correct term to use when referring to dogs.

Finally the Debate is Settled Determining whether dogs have hair or fur is a pretty common question. Hair and Fur are the Same Both fur and hair are made up of the same chemical—keratin—which is also present in skin and nails. This means that both fur and hair are chemically indistinguishable. The truth? Both fur and hair are both—well, hair. Each is made up of keratin, and each grows out of hair follicles. The difference has to do with how each strand behaves.

Dogs who have a fur coat Golden Retrievers , Jack Russell terriers tend to have shorter, coarser hairs that are fine in texture, often with two layers—a top coat and a soft undercoat that helps them maintain a comfortable body temperature. Fur coats also tend to shed more and disperse in the air with shorter growth cycles.

Whales, for instance, are mammals, but they are nearly hairless. We lack hair over a lot of our bodies.

SA: Is hair a defining characteristic of mammals? NS: Its one of them. Other features that define mammals include producing milk to nourish the offspring. SA: When does hair appear to have arisen? NS: We dont know, because the evolutionary lineage leading to mammals includes many fossil forms going way back in time, and hair, as a rule, doesnt fossilize. So we cant know whether many of these relatives of mammals from the age of dinosaurs and earlier had hair or not.

SA: Are there any impressions of hair in the fossil record? NS: There are very few fossils where there are impressions of anything in terms of soft tissue. SA: How did hair evolve? NS: I think most evolutionary biologists believe that the evolution of hair is correlated with the evolution of endothermy, or warmbloodednessthe ability to produce internal body heatand hair is a very good insulator. If youre going to spend a lot of metabolic energy heating your body, its more efficient to hold on to that heat and not to lose it to the environment around you.

So having hair as a means of insulation is one of the ideas about why we have hair. Of course, there is no way for us to tell whether hair evolved first and then endothermy evolved, or whether endothermy evolved and then somehow hair evolved.

We really dont know anything about these things. SA: Humans evolved in Africa, along with a lot of primates that are covered with fur. Why did humans lose most of theirs? NS: We dont know. Theres a lot of variation in how much of the body is covered with fur in various primate groups. Some are incredibly hairy, and some have considerably less fur on the face and the chest and so on.

Primates tend to rely on facial expressions for social communication, and of course the better you can see the face, perhaps the better that social communication works.