My friends at Leather Creations where I worked at the time when I created the concept encouraged me to pursue getting it out to the public. Initially only a few friends knew about my leather dog pride design but little by little people saw the design and remarked that they liked it. I also always liked Tony DeBlase’s description regarding the colors he choose “I will leave it to the viewer to interpret the colors and symbols.” Now I had a symbol I could identify with as a leather dog that did not discriminate based on a dog breed and that would be visually translatable around the world. So I took out the red heart and added a red dog bone to the center of the leather pride colors. So I thought what simple symbol would be universally recognized around the world that is associated with dogs? Then it became obvious, a dog bone. And I didn’t want to use a paw as the bear community already had been using that particular image as their symbol representation. I tried to imagine another dog head but each one was too defining to a particular breed and there was no generic all encompassing dog head I could think of. The main thing I did not like about it was the dog head looked like a Dobermans head and I did not identify myself as a Doberman. Over a decade ago I had come across a design with a red dog head on the leather pride colors but something did not feel right about it.
![original gay pride flag colr meanings original gay pride flag colr meanings](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/08/6e/57/086e57076effa43a72bb75ec3514e677.png)
So it was natural for me to embrace the leather pride flag that Tony DeBlase created as a symbol I could relate to in the beginning when it first came out and even more so over the decades.īut even though I identified with the leather pride flag it still was missing something, a complete representation of myself. I never really identified as a bear (even though I am very hairy) or as a member of the Imperial Court system (even though I worked/volunteered with them) or as a pan-sexual (even though I belonged to many groups/friends) or any of the other organizations I belonged to that have come and gone since but as a gay leather man and finally over time as a gay leather Dog. Growing up I always had a pup (Dog) soul. Over 25+ years ago when I started exploring my pup journey my first experience in identifying myself was as a gay leather man in my early childhood. I am going to throw a little history lesson into this pup pride flag discussion:
![original gay pride flag colr meanings original gay pride flag colr meanings](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Intersex_Pride_Flag.svg/1280px-Intersex_Pride_Flag.svg.png)
![original gay pride flag colr meanings original gay pride flag colr meanings](https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5b1969f62200004500eeacf5.jpeg)
~ Original note from Kirk “Brue” Pierce, the original designer to the Pup Bone pride flag. Gaydogtraining pup pride flag which is still in use today