LAD'S A LASSIE
Dog lover spends £12,500 transforming himself into a collie
A DOG-lover is transformed into a collie by an ultra-realistic costume that cost £12,500.
The Lassie-wannabe ordered it from a specialist movie and TV costume-maker.
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In footage posted online, he stands on all fours as jaunty piano music plays in the background.
He lifts his right paw twice in an apparent greeting before raising his left paw. Then he is seen rolling on the floor.
The Japanese oddball, who uses the online name Toko-san, paid two million yen for the fake fur suit, which took 40 days to make.
Makers Zeppet said they studied the skeleton of a collie to make the suit realistic, and looked at dog photos from various angles to reproduce the coat so it “flows naturally”.
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Toko-san says the collie is his favourite breed, and the suit has helped him “fulfil my dream of becoming an animal.”
He said: "I made it a collie because it looks real when I put it on.
"I thought that a big animal close to my size would be good – considering that it would be a realistic model, so I decided to make it a dog."
He added: "There are restrictions, but you can move in it. However, if you move too much, it will not look like a dog."
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Zeppet told local media they made adjustments to the "fluffiness" of the coat to hide the shell of the dog and made the mouth open and close by itself.
The video, posted on Twitter and liked more than 50,000 times, received mixed reactions online.
One person wrote: "Being freak, god level! Well done!"
Another said: "You spent money on that? Lol well at least it’s realistic to a degree."
A third said: "I think it’s awesome that you are a border collie. Never change unless you want to."
It seems Toko-san isn't alone in his weird love for dressing up as man's best friend.
In the US, more than a quarter of a million people now identify as "furries" - a subculture where members dress up as cartoonish animals, sometimes as a sexual fetish.
Writer and enthusiast Joe Strike, 67, from New York, penned a book lifting the lid on the quirky fetish in a book called Furry Nation.
Strike, who dresses up as a suave Komodo dragon named Komos, estimates two-thirds of furries are men and that a large number of them come from the IT and technology professions.
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Meanwhile a study on furries led by Canadian college professor Kathy Gerbasi was published in the journal Society & Animals.
It found a quarter of those surveyed considered themselves less than 100 per cent human and would become zero per cent human if they could.
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