lupestripe | Explaining The Furry Thing

Yesterday, when walking around the Christmas Market in Manchester, a lady selling overly-expensive pork pies asked me why I was wearing my collar. My collar is an important part of me - it symbolises my relationship with Wolfie more than anything else, as well as me being furry. It's something that I enjoy wearing on a day-to-day basis and to me it's like a ring, necklace or bracelet.

However, I also have to accept that a 27 year old man wearing a dog collar is going to draw some funny looks and questions. I couldn't really answer her question really - I can't go into the whole ownership D/s thing and I can't really extol being a furry to people who probably wouldn't understand. I also can't really say I am a goth as goths tend not to wear tags on their collars and I rarely dress in all black.

Apart from "it's something I enjoy doing", which is somewhat of a limp reason, what else can I say? Granted, I am not answerable to anyone but I don't wish to be rude. Any ideas?

P.S. A collar does make a really nice scarf as it does keep your neck warm when it's cold :-)