We’ve been talking about unique and unusual ways to save money. Some of these suggestions are practical, though others are admittedly weird. Please excuse us while we showcase one of the weirder ways you can save money:

Re-use your pet’s fur.

You heard us right. Dogs and cats can function as domestic sheep if you’re willing to use their fur in much the same way wool is used. Now most of us don’t “shear” our cats and dogs the way sheep farmers harvest their product, but we’re told that you can actually use your pet’s fur to make garments or practical use items. No, we’re totally serious about this!

You can make a blanket, sweater, bandana or similar items out of your pet’s hair. If you’re really good at sewing (and you have a lot of cats) you could go into business for yourself and make some extra income. We realize you might still be skeptical at this point so we’ll point you to this video, in which Animal Planet features a woman who makes small bags out of her cats’ hair. Finally, a practical use for cats!

We should point out that the process is harmless, assuming you can get your cat to stand still long enough (dogs are different, you could shave off a dog’s ears and they’ll sit there until you give them permission to go play – that’s a rhetorical statement, please do not shave off your dog’s ears). If you don’t have the sewing skill or the patience to do all that micro-weaving, there are places you can send the pet fur to and they’ll spin it into yarn, or if you wish, even make you a pair of mittens or a beanie (because we all want to wear our cats on our heads, right? Admit it, it’s your innermost secret desire). If you’re having trouble finding a good outlet for your pet’s fur, you can always try the wonderfully and aptly named ‘Hair of the Dog’.

Pet hair items seem to be a big business, judging by what we found on Etsy, and who knows, if you’ve got a particularly sheddy dog, something like this could help you clean up…and clean up. We know “sheddy” is not a word, but we’re pretty sure if you’re a dog owner, you know exactly what we mean by that.

Here’s an idea; save up enough of your pet’s fur to make a pet bed out of it! Not only will your dog or cat feel like they’re snuggling up with themselves, but you’ll never notice the mess of pet hair covering the bed! After all, what’s better? Cleaning up your pet’s shed hair, or camouflaging it? At this point we recommend that you not have identical pets if you do this. One pet unknowingly plopping down on another could be cause some unwanted tension in the house…and a lot of coughed up furballs.

In seriousness, though, if you are thinking about starting up a pet fur sewing business and don’t exactly have the start-up funds to get the operation going, you could see us at CASH 1 for vehicle title loans in Nevada or Arizona.

Just be careful if you do start up a pet fur business. We hear it can be ruff.