Few could escape the shocking revelation over the festive period that one of the Queen's corgis was mauled by one of Princess Anne's terriers. As gloom descended over Sandringham, much of the nation responded to the story with an unseemly schadenfreude.
A reader in The Guardian paid tribute to Dotty and Florence, "who have made everyone's Christmas so entertaining." The great British love of pets is tempered by a disdain for sentimentality: the darkest sin of the postmodern age. No wonder the Dotty episode -- with its batty owners and mad, bad, dangerous and much cosseted dogs, caused such glee.
Lurking behind this mirth is a suspicion that the British pursuit of animal happiness has gone overboard. Writing in The Observer, Mary Riddell accused the royal family of plugging into "a broader cult of animal worship." The Windsor clan, she argued, "has a brilliant grasp of petshop populism;" "in the semis of England, as in its palaces, pets matter," she scoffed.
ILLUSTRATION MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
A rash of stories about dogged eccentricity and excess gives the impression that the country's 6.1 million dogs and 7.5 million cats have never had it so good. The Queen's legendary attachment to her dogs is as ordinary as her Tupperware. Indeed, our cherished pets are being loved to death. Half of them are overweight and a recent report by the National Research Council in the US concludes that a quarter of dogs and cats in the western world are obese, leading to a rise in diabetes, heart conditions and other problems.
Pet owners seem to have acquired a reputation for extravagant frivolity. So much so, that Civilita Cattolica, a magazine edited by Italian Jesuits and approved by the Vatican, recently published an article which warned against buying expensive pet food -- behavior deemed by the magazine to be "completely mad and morally condemnatory."
"Pets cost their owners billions" was the headline on a story this week about research from Sainsbury's Bank which found that the British spend ?1.23 billion a year on their pets. A tidy sum, without doubt, but it amounts to an average of ?76 a year per cat and ?81 per dog, and that includes food, vets' bills, toys, treats and trips to the poodle parlor. All in all, that could be pretty good value. Doggy health spas, luxury pet hotels and diamond-encrusted collars might grab headlines, but it seems most of us have decidedly more modest tastes when it comes to pampering our pets. According to a "dog census" produced by Winalot in September, almost 50 percent of dogs go on holiday with their owners every year. But, chances are, the trip is nothing more extravagant than a fortnight in a converted barn in Cornwall. We might love them, but that doesn't mean we've lost the plot.
The most notable trend in British pet-keeping has more to do with lifestyle choice than disposable income. The cat has become the nation's favorite companion and dog numbers are falling fast. According to the Pet Food Manufacturers' Association, there were 7.3 million pet dogs in 1992 and 7 million cats. By 2002, there were 7.5 million cats yet only 6 million dogs. Pets are a barometer of social change: the demise of the stay-at-home mum, the long-hours culture, the rise in people living alone -- all favor cats over more time-consuming dogs. Rabbits are the third most popular pet, and they're not just for kids anymore. Two out of 10 of them live in the house as fully fledged members of the family and, like cats, are the pet of choice for young, busy professionals with no children.
The worry for those with a deep respect for the age-old, human-canine friendship is not that pets matter too much, rather that they still don't matter enough. Twenty-five years after Clarissa Baldwin, chief executive of Dogs Trust (formerly the National Canine Defence League), came up with the slogan "A dog is for life, not just for Christmas," people are still discarding unwanted presents. It's impossible to know how common this is as people rarely admit it -- but animal shelters receive an influx of dogs around Easter when the Christmas puppy has turned from cute to difficult.
Dogs Trust looked after 11,516 animals last year; only 280 were reunited with their original owners. Local authorities recorded 111,016 stray dogs across the UK between April, 2002 and March last year. Around 10,000 greyhounds are retired from racing every year with an uncertain future. Thousands of foxhounds are still despatched prematurely because they've outlived their usefulness. Puppies still have their tails cut off for purely cosmetic reasons.
The RSPCA re-homes around 100,000 animals every year; and last year was a bumper year for grisly cruelty cases, including a record 269 animals rescued from one home and 73 dogs seized following a three-year investigation into dog fighting. In 2002, the RSPCA secured 2,000 cruelty convictions and 880 banning orders. Can we really call ourselves a nation of over-indulgent animal lovers?
In the face of this cruelty, it seems a tad misplaced to point the finger at people who send Christmas cards to their pets or feed them posh food, or deck them out in natty designer bandanas.
Furthermore, there's not a scrap of evidence that pet owners are any more socially inept or misanthropic than the next person.
The royal dogs saga will fade away in the light of more salient scandals which will serve to remind us that while there are sound reasons to object to the royal family, devotion to dogs isn't one of them.
Justine Hankins is the Guardian's pets editor
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