Issue date: 3/24/05 Section: Aggielife

Zack Sweeten - The Battalion

When Brendon Jones gets ready to leave his apartment, he puts on his pants, his shirt and his dog collar. Without the collar he feels upset; almost as though he has no identity.

Jones, a freshman computer engineering major, goes by Sakanz - the name engraved on the metallic blue bone on his dog collar - and is one of thousands of Americans who identifies himself with a group of people that calls itself the furries. He describes furries as people who like to dress up as animals and interact with each other.

"I'd say being a furry is like being something that you feel is more yourself than being a human," Jones said. "Some people identify more with animals than humans."

Jones said that a majority of furries are homosexual or bisexual, and often engage in sexual activities with each other while adapting the mindset and donning costumes of specific animals. Two furries rubbing up against each other is called "yiffing," and they sometimes make noises that their chosen animal would make.

The Internet has served as the main networking method for furries to find others with this same fetish, and people like Sakanz attend conferences specifically for furries to meet. In the Bryan-College Station community, Jones and his roommate know 12 furries and try to hold meetings occasionally. About four furries go to Texas A&M, he said.

Jones describes himself as being an "otherkin," a person who believes he or she was an animal in a past life and still carries its spirit. Jones believes he is a raptor, and wishes he had a tail and scales so he could be more like the animal he has always admired. He tries to assimilate the raptor way of life into his own because he believes it's better than the human way of life.

"(Raptors' lives are) more basic," he said. "You don't have to spend four years in college to get a good job to live. They can just hunt; they don't have to starve if they can't afford food.

At one point last semester, Jones tried to construct a raptor suit to feel more like a raptor, but the process was time consuming, and he soon gave up. Other furries, however, sometimes wear entire body suits or simply a tail or ears to identify themselves with the animal they more closely relate to.

This way of life hasn't always gone smoothly for Jones; people's reactions to his dog collar aren't always pleasant.

"One person asked if I got my rabies shot," he said. "I just ignored him."

Alex Harder, a freshman biomedical science major, lived with Jones for two and a half weeks at the beginning of the school year in a dorm room after the two were randomly assigned to live together. Harder wasn't happy with his assignment. During their time together, Harder slowly learned about Jones' lifestyle and decided he didn't want to live with Jones anymore.

Continued...

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