A man choose to dress as a dog over marrying his girlfriend. Theatre technician Tom, 32, loves dressing as a puppy so much that when he was given the ultimatum by his fiancé Rachel about what he loved more she was unfortunately sidelined.
Tom, who was crowned Mr Puppy UK is just one of the pups featured in Channel 4 's latest documentary Secret Life of Human Pups , which explores the weird world of 'human pups' - grown men who enjoy dressing up as dogs.
The craze has around 10,000 followers in the UK who are interested in pup play and being kept on a leash by their 'handlers'.
Tom split from his fiancé Rachel because of his love for dressing up as a
dalmatian called Spot which has cost him around £4,000 so far over the
ten years he has being enjoying the craze.
"You disappear, you start chasing puppy toys and people give you ear scratches and treat you like a puppy. You disappear so much into the head space that you don't stop to think but you crave it and you want it and you wish for it. It's magic, it just really is genuinely magic," he explains.
"I am strongly happily, proud of who I am and what I look like and I don't care about what anyone else thinks."
Rachel, who is still friends with Tom and allows him to store his outfit at her home, says:
"He wanted to be able to explore different avenues and I just didn't understand it. I didn't want to understand it then."It was him having to make a choice between what he wanted to do or me, and it was a better choice for him. He is two different things when he is Spot and when he is Tom, which is what I suppose I walked away from."
Since the split Tom moved in with his 'handler' Colin. But there is
absolutely zero romantic involvement as the pair insist it is just
purely the fun of the pup play.
