To wonder why the UK became so dog friendly?

[LancelotsLeftArm]

I have had several dogs in my life but I'm finding recent events in the last 2-3 years baffling.

Local ice cream shop lets dogs in - no longer go there as last time there was a massive dog blocking serving place where DC choose flavours, not sure what breed but size of a Labrador. 2 year Old's face ended up getting licked and knocked over,now DC doesn't feel comfortable around dogs. Always dogs there now but usually not that bad.

Family member has 2 labs that hate each other (no idea why) plus a history of "nipping" each other (?!) and recently they were growling at each other, teeth bared, lips rolling back. Toddler right between them with a toy. Heard the growling, got worse for about about 2mins, decided to tell toddler to move away quietly and calmly. Put myself between toddler and dogs. In law Relative went ape shit , offended. FFS. Decided we're not welcome in future if we don't accept that the dogs would "never harm a child" (like that's a reassurance).

School (primary school) is dog friendly and allowing dogs on leads in playground at pickup times which would NEVER have been accepted in my school. Including larger ones, not terriers etc - more Pointers etc.

Ah no - we do not take our dog in, one of us stands outside with the dog - the other asks if an establishment is dog friendly - we are invited in despite them not always letting dogs in or that’s what they say - maybe they are just trying to make us feel special.😂. No idea how you jump to the conclusion that is entitlement.

Did a mini tour of Europe last year and I’d say that every country we visited was more dog friendly than the UK. The dog was the guest of honour!

Thanks for picking me to having a rant at, you might want to redirect your rant at someone who made comments it fits with because it doesn’t respond to my comment.

and categorically most places are not dog freindly, they are dog tolerant. I choose to go to places that are dog freindly and dint push my dog is other faces if they aren’t expecting it.

But there’s no practical difference between dog friendly and dog tolerant if what you want is “dog free” - and that is getting even harder to find since this thread originally started

Reminds me of going to a restaurant in Berlin and a dog was sitting at the head of a table of five, looking very important.

“Fur babies” that can’t possibly be left alone, as get separation anxiety, and so have to go everywhere. Plus they hate fireworks so they need banning.

We had dogs in the 70s & 80s.. not “fur babies”, or surragate children .. dogs. When we went out, they stayed home (unless they were on a walk), we didn’t insist on taking them to the pub, cafe or supermarket, and we didn’t insist on taking them to other peoples houses.

My Granny’s dog went out in the morning and returned at dusk. This was in the 60s, btw. People used to say, “Oh, just saw Fido up the park” and no one seemed to object. (Before my time, as the ignorant used to say on Popmaster.)

Dogs are cute but I wouldn't want one. They seem to constantly seek approval and stimulation from people. Some of them tend to stink too.

There are definitely more since lockdown.

I don't hate seeing well behaved clean dogs sitting quietly on the floor in pubs/cafes, but clothes shops? I would not want to buy something to wear that could potentially have been slobbered on or worse by a dog running round the shop/ changing rooms.

@ThighMistress Haha, my friend who's about 70 said that was really common when she was younger in New Zealand. 'Latchkey dogs' she called them. Apparently they knew where they lived and just wandered about. Once she went to the shopping centre and was going up the escalator, and her dog passed her on the opposite escalator on the way down. Totally normal apparently.

Me and DH were at a brewery last summer and a useless owner was sat inside with her badly behaved dog. Dog started barking at me and DH. Fair enough I thought, maybe we spooked it coming in. But for the rest of the time we were there, the dog would periodically get up and start bark bark barking at us. Feeble owner said 'oh shush or I'll put you outside' with a tinkely laugh and started GIVING THE DOG TREATS to shush it. Obviously the dog was learning that the more it barked, the more treats it got. It was a beautiful day but despite the owners threats, the dog never got put outside and kept been fed treats.
I have autism so the sudden barking was horrible for me. We left after one drink (we could have gone outside ourselves I know, but why should we have to)

Also was watching of these 'dog behaving badly' programmes and there was an episode with a hairdressers who had a horrible little yappy thing who used to bark whenever a customer approached the window. I was surprised they got any custom at all as I'd be running for the hills if I had a dog running towards me barking when I went to get my hair done