Anyone who has ever watched the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show knows how important it is for a dog to have a proper hairstyle.
Some breeds in the competition, and it’s not clear exactly why it has turned out this way, are groomed to look like escapees from the Over-the-Top Coiffure Convention. Poodles, their bodies adorned with elaborate pieces of fluffed-up topiary; Yorkshire terriers, whose fur is so silkily long that they appear to have no legs; komondors, perhaps the closest thing we have to sentient industrial mops — hair is essential to these dogs.