This is because hair is an excellent insulator, and must be removed so the extreme cold of the freeze branding iron can be applied directly to the skin.
Initially, livestock branding was adopted to differentiate one person's cattle from another's by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animal's skin with a hot branding iron.
The same blind spot was evident in the explanation he offered of why the telephone call alerting him to this racket did not strike him like a branding iron.
