As you all know I am not a modeler and hate that, would love to contribute actual work here instead if ideas but I had such an idea so please forgive the question but just curious.
Why can't the long haired shaggy dogs like the Pom or Afghan or Sheep Dog or even the long curly hair Irish Wolf Hounds and the like get hair made the same way that long conforming hair is made for human figures? I see the untextured hair for humans as shaped planes with morphs added for shaping, lengthening and moving layered and textured/transmapped for more realism. They are either conforming hair or .Hr2 props. Would it be difficult to create such hair props for the different breeds?
I saw a set of massively long curly looking body hair created for M4 at DAZ that was added to the M4 Body suit that mad the hair on the figure look real relief and shadows gave that illusion. Couldn't a super conforming well textured/transmapped/and telief mapped "bodysuit" like add-on be created for each breed to add more realistic looking fur?
Also I see animals like those created by DinoRaul or animals like the DAZ War Hound that has strand hair in certain places. Can't such strands be created to work in conjunction with with long hanging strands like beards but added to certain body parts as smart props in conjunction with conforming hair add-ons? Using several clever accessorized add-ons for the fur could be an easier waty to go instead of creating real Fur for each (for dunderheds like me that is that have no clue how to use the hair room or cloth room in Poser.
It can be done-- though it's very complex and tricky to do. I do use it on some of my more recent birds-- the kiwi being a great example.
Another good example of it is 9mbi's work (no longer in the community). Since I don't see the models anywhere I did a quick render his Lesser Panda and Red Fox-- this is pure layered trans map fur as a conforming part. I actually looked at his techniques as a basis for what I wanted to do in my owl and refined them so that the intense patterning of the default base texture would transfer to the fur layers (9mbi's approach were much simpler). I'll be happy to share my secrets with anyone adventurous and patient enough to try it (you will need extensive knowledge in modeling, UVs and texture painting)