Having a dog in Central London

[weissman]

We live in Central London, in a predominantly residential area. It's very quiet. There is a dog park 3 mins walk from here. We only have a one bedroom apartment, but it's bigger than many two beds. We have a small garden/terrace. Growing up I had a standard poodle, an airedale terrier, and two labradors (two at a time).

Both DH and I work long hours, but there is almost always one of us at home. On weekends we often drive down to the coast where my parents have a house, or to the country where dh's parents live. We know it would be expensive, but we'd be happy to get a walker whenever necessary etc.

I would guess that owning a dog in Central London is slightly different/perhaps more challenging than in a regular town/countryside. I would like to hear from people who have a dog and live centrally? Doesn't need to be London, I guess Manhattan or Central Paris would be similar.

Not interested in people saying it's unfair on the dog, as plenty of people have dogs around here and manage fine.

Does your building allow animals / dogs?

I think the issue with dogs in the middle of big cities can be if they develop reactivity for whatever reason it can be a nightmare keeping them below threshold.
It can be really over stimulating for some dogs and I’d definitely be looking at a very laid back breed for that situation.

I had a dog in central Paris, who moved with me to Zone 1 London. No problem at all. He was totally fine. Especially in London where there are of parks. Paris was a bit more challenging for that but I always managed to find some opportunities for him to play with other dogs and run off lead.

Now I have another dog, a small 11mo terrier, in Zone 3 London in a very quiet area, but I take him to central London a lot, like once or twice a week.
He's getting really good in public transport now.

I know when he's overwhelmed and tired now (he makes that very clear), and when it happens in central london, I just avoid big busy roads and favor quiet streets.

Central London is really good compared to Central NY or Paris, in the sense that there's a lot of quiet pockets and parks. Just a beergarden in a pub can be very quiet and relaxing, compared to a café terrasse in Paris.
And now there's even Uber pets !

My only real concern would be dealing with reactivity or noise sensitivity.

Depends on the breed. I don't think it is fair for any working breed ie spaniel/retriever/ HPR breeds to live in a city. Toy breed types not as bad.

Not London, but we live in a city. It’s great because of the playing and socialising in our local park, really lovely community. We have a very laid back hound which really helps and can cope with anything.

Huge sweeping statement alert! From my experience city dogs tend to be way less reactive than rural dogs.

Usually as they have just known no different from the hustle and bustle.

If you have a reactive dog a great place to desensitise them is in a London park City dogs are used to meeting other dogs and read their body language really well and just avoid dogs that struggle. Loads of opportunities to carry out LAT.

I work my dogs (wcs) regularly in London the parks are fab and generally dogs are tolerated pretty well by people.

My rural collies would have a melt down however!

Get the right dog OP and they can have a great life. Maybe look more at the companion breeds than the dogs you have had previously and they will get the best of both worlds.

Maybe go to Battersea Dog home and look at dogs that are happily acclimatised to the city noise and take it from there.

We have a whippet and live in Central London which works well for us and the dog.

The breed works well in a big city because:

1. They run hard in the park and then sleep on the sofa for the rest of the day so are very flat/apartment friendly
2. They like to stay clean and never smell of wet dog so most London restaurants are fine with them.
3. They are light enough to be carried on the escalators on the TFL network
4. They don't really bark

We found that training has been really important and played our dog all sorts of noises from playlists since he was a 12 week old puppy. We also tried to expose him to as many different city environments during his first 5 months as possible. And he went to "puppy school" i.e. doggy daycare once a week from 14 weeks - not because we needed help but because we had heard that it really helped with socialising and avoiding reactivity to different other breeds.

Good luck - a dog is such a great addition to your life. We wouldn't want to be without ours

We regularly visit a city so socialised our pup very early with everything that would entail as we live semi rurally ourselves. I find the same. City dogs are more sociable and actually better trained for the most part. They certainly tend to have better social skills than the labradors dogs I meet on our home rural walks.

Id avoid anything noise and movement sensitive (collies) but other than that if you socialise them well then there aren’t really many issues.

Depends on the breed. I don't think it is fair for any working breed ie spaniel/retriever/ HPR breeds to live in a city

This. We have a Springer and I think city living would be totally unsuited to her breed.

Huge sweeping statement alert! From my experience city dogs tend to be way less reactive than rural dogs.

We live rurally and weirdly, our beagle is never reactive to other dogs in busy city environments. I'd love to know his logic, lol.