We live in a dog-crazy land. You know it’s true. There are 12.5 million pet dogs in Britain, and no fewer than one in three households have one. Which is, by any measure, a lot of dogs, especially when we’re confronting a cost-of-living crisis.
Most people, of course, will already know why we have quite so many of them: they’re cute when they’re young and beautiful or handsome when fully grown; they provide companionship, yet they don’t do passive aggression or sarcasm. Most of us already have siblings, parents or a spouse for that.
Dogs also offer the not inconsiderable challenge of training them and the concomitant pleasure of their eventually doing what they’re told – as well as the public humiliation that comes when they continue to jump up on strangers or knock old ladies down with their enthusiasm. (Mind you, watching other people’s dogs do that offers the reciprocal pleasure of canine schadenfreude.)
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