The war on dogs is barking mad

Has Britain become ‘too dog-friendly’? Apparently, even as war rages in Iran and an energy crisis bites at home, the question of whether too many public spaces are welcoming to dogs is one that BBC News felt it had to address this week.

‘From coffee shops, restaurants and retailers… dog-friendly spaces are becoming easy to come by’, opens a news report from BBC Wales. ‘But people who are allergic to dogs, or afraid of them, say that the rise of these dog-friendly spaces is a concern’, the reporter continues.

Reeling off statistics conveying the extent of the UK’s love affair with dogs, the BBC presenter goes on to note that an increasing number of people feel ‘trapped’ in their homes due to their fear of other people’s pets. ‘What do you think? Has it all gone a bit too far?’, he asks.

Apparently, dogs are a major issue in the BBC newsroom. Along with the video report, BBC Wales also saw fit to publish a written piece on the horrors of our increasingly dog-friendly nation. It quotes Abi Wilson, a young woman from Worcestershire, who says she does not leave the house, ‘Unless I am 100 per cent sure that a place does not allow dogs’. ‘I can’t even step out the front door to go to the car without feeling sick and sweating’, she says, describing the symptoms of her ‘cynophobia’, or fear of dogs. She also bemoans the fact that many of her usual ‘safe spaces’ are becoming pro-dog.

It would be easy to dismiss this as yet more of the trivial and inconsequential fluff pieces that now make up much of BBC News’ output. However, as more than a few people have pointed out on social media, there could be more to the BBC’s story than a concern for cynophobes. It could, some have suggested, be yet another reflection of the growing influence of Islam in the UK – a religion that considers dogs to be impure.

This might sound like a bit of a stretch, but the link is not entirely tenuous. Indeed, the UK government itself has been leading the anti-dog discourse, seemingly on behalf of British Muslims. Earlier this year, when the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) outlined how it planned to make the English countryside ‘less white’, it claimed that dogs are one of the main impediments to ethnic-minority Britons enjoying rural England. ‘A lot of Muslims find dogs very difficult’, a Labour Party adviser and advocate of the policy told GB News.

Nor has DEFRA been the only state body with dogs in its crosshairs. In 2024, the Welsh government was widely ridiculed for commissioning a report as part of its ‘Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan’, calling for the introduction of ‘dog-free areas’ in parks – in order, you guessed it, to make them ‘more inclusive’. Camden Council in London has also proposed banning dogs outright, leashed and unleashed, from several of the parks under its control.

It was surely only a matter of time before the culture warriors came for man’s best friend. After all, everything else that the British people love and cherish, from football to the national flag to the local pub, has long been considered fair game.

Still, if the powers-that-be think Britons will give up their dogs without a fight, then they really must be barking mad.

Hugo Timms is a staff writer at spiked.