Dogs

Back in August I visited Bowness-upon-Windemere with my mother and sister for my mother’s birthday. It is a gorgeous and busy village perched upon Lake Windemere in the English Lake District, and somewhere that I, and many others, enjoy visiting whenever possible. The Lake District is full of charming little towns and packed to the rafters with incredible scenery, and I would heartily recommend a visit if you are looking for somewhere in England to visit.

It had been a while since my last visit, however, and I was surprised to notice a couple of changes. A twin set of Palestinian flags leered at me from a long-established lakeside café.

 “Look,” they said, “you can’t even buy an ice cream in peace any more. What are your thoughts on this long-running Middle-Eastern conflict? Pogroms? Genocide? Tunnels? Hostages? English town centres repeatedly being overrun with disruptive and oft unpleasant protestors? Is Raspberry Ripple the choice of a Zionist pig? Ponder that.” And so on and so forth.

The cynic in me wondered if this appearance of an Arabic flag in the heart of Beatrix Potter country had anything to do with the massive shift in tourist demographics. Whereas previously I had found my fellow visitors to be approximately 70% white, 25% Far Eastern, and 5% various, this time was different. There were barely any Japanese or Chinese visitors giving our solid, chip-loving British waistlines the skinny side-eye. As for whites, I would guess at the number dropping to nearer to 50%, with the majority of the rest being Muslim Asian. Whether they were from abroad or largely homegrown, I don’t know. I have no idea why there would be such a huge a sudden shift in demographics visiting the Lake District’s number one ‘honeypot’ (as referred to by my various Geography GCSE textbooks which seemed to take an almost unhealthy interest in the area).

Not to tempt the Crown Prosecution Service here, but I rather preferred the Far Eastern types. They had the good sense to arrive largely by coach, unlike the new wave of tourists, who seemed to all come by Range Rover or caravan, both of which are very fun to double-park, apparently. In my experience, neither group make for good drivers on tiny and winding British roads, and the architects of these centuries-old settlements simply couldn’t have imagined the full-bodied fear experienced by a Bangladeshi grandfather-of-eight being forced to navigate his rental BMW through a herd of furious geese occupying the single lane of a one-way system.

Well, at least the geese didn’t have flags.

Bread? Bread? HONK. Bread?

I also noticed a change in the white/English contingent visiting the place. For every white person I saw that day, there seemed to be a dog. Not every white person had a dog, some of us were too busy holding our apolitical ice-cream cones (I found a different café) to want to hold a lead. However, many of those who did have dogs were busy trying to make up for our lack of doggy devotion, with multiple leads tied around waists, or, as with more than one family, multiple pooches in dog prams.

The Lake District has long been ahead of the curve with regard to being a “dog-friendly” area, understandable given how much of the appeal is glorious walks through the fells and around the lakes. Being such an outdoorsy type of destination means that it always appealed to keen walkers and amateurs who are happy to share the great outdoors with their dogs, who naturally have a whale of a time. It became the norm many years ago to see water bowls for dogs in café and pub gardens. Then, many of those venues simply allowed the pets inside, on the condition that they would behave well. Often, they behaved better than certain members of the human clientele. I am yet to witness a labrador get tanked up on six pints of real ale before 2pm and fall out of his sandals. Still, never say never.

Shamelessly pilfered from pawsandstay.com

Still, the eateries - many of which now serve doggy ice-cream - were not enough for the dog-lovers of the world. In a move I have seen in various other towns, but much more so in well-to-do areas, the dog-owners in Windermere could be found confidently walking their pets into every single business available. I saw a poodle perched on the counter of an art gallery. The poodle, it should be noted, wore a sun hat. How this dog manages to find a hat that fits it and stays on when I am yet to manage the same after 32 years of stalking this Earth in at least mostly hominid form, I do not know. The dog looked at me as I walked past, as if to say, “Do you really think you can afford any of these pieces? They’re originals, you know.”

We navigated the crammed pavements, normally difficult enough with humans and waterfowl, but made all the more tricky with the roving gangs of pedigrees and fancy mongrels (sorry, Cockerpoos), who formed beautiful macrame installations with their extendable leads. We picked through the canine obstacle course to the best of our ability.

“Sorry. Excuse me. Could we just-?”

“Woof. No.”

“Ah. Right, I just wanted to - ”

“Woof. Absolutely not.”

Appeals to the owners fell largely on deaf ears.

We entered a clothes shop, part of the chain so delightfully named as “Fat Face”. Isn’t that a brilliant name? I would have preferred, “Fat Arse”, or perhaps the more forceful, “Fat Bastard”. Oddly, it is not a plus-sized outlet, but instead offers somewhat overpriced, “outdoorsy”, slightly boho type clothes. Everything is about a third more expensive than it should be, but I like to check for offers while pretending that I can afford the normal prices.

My time in this shop was cut short by my pathetic need to breathe. Despite having no allergies to dogs, I found the air to be searingly acidic thanks to the body odour of two family’s packs of dogs. I say “families”, but it was a middle-aged couple and a middle-aged woman with six dogs between them. The shop was a tiny space; as with most shops in the Lake District it occupied the downstairs of a several-hundred year old terraced building. It could be traversed in a dozen paces. As I say, quite small. The trio had opted to bring all the dogs in with them, instead of say, leaving them outside with one human and taking it in turns, which would of course be disgustingly considerate. It would, I’m sure, show an unacceptable level of weakness. Or perhaps the dogs were also in the market for a cotton maxi sundress with a floral print.

Thusly we were treated to the delights of trying to squeeze around a couple of large gun dogs and four pugs who appeared to be at death’s door, three of whom were in a dog pram. The pram pusher decided to leave the pram entirely blocking the steps that joined the shop’s split levels while she gassed with the shop assistants about her precious cargo.

The dogs heaved and gasped inside the pram, possibly not helped by the gloriously warm weather or the fact that they have been bred to look as fucked up as possible, snouts be damned. Once I had escaped the pug blockade and hurdled over the labradors, I gave up on the clothes entirely and made my way to the door. I accidentally made eye contact with the dog’s male owner and found him glaring at me. Perhaps having spent his life surrounded by dogs, he had gained some sort of heightened sense of scent and could now smell my disgust. Or perhaps he just really hated his life pushing around a bunch of half-dead lapdogs while his wife discussed breeding techniques with strangers. Who can say?

I say this not as someone who hates dogs, although I admittedly lack the gooeyness that others seem to get when presented with them. My husband tells me that he doesn’t understand how I’m not a farmer, as apparently, I have a very rural approach to animals. Simply put, I prefer the ones that give me food, or that can be turned into a rather nice rug. I think I may have used all my dog-love on my own now late pet, a cheerfully insane mongrel called Dilly. Dilly and I accepted our limitations. I did not feel the need to wheel her around busy shops and cobbled streets, but I did cut short my trips away from her so that she was never on her own for long. I adapted my behaviour to suit her, rather than pushing her into every inch of my life.

The increasing lack of boundaries around dogs is, I believe, part of a wider destruction of perceived norms and manners in our society. Why should I adapt? I must live my best life. My dog must live her best life. Smell my pug. Smell it.

The boundaries in family roles have blurred at the same time as the boundaries in public life have been smudged, or outright dismantled. I’m speaking anecdotally here, but perhaps you too remember a time when people did not do their shopping in pyjamas or see-through leggings? When nobody had a mobile phone into which to blare their personal business on the bus? When we did not “bring our whole (progressive-approved) self” to work?

It is now passé to assume that mothers will do the bulk of the childcare, unless we are talking about the “gender pay gap”. Fathers are too often an afterthought, often relegated to role of “partner” in e.g., healthcare settings. And now, dogs are children – and heaven knows, you cannot question anybody’s child or their presence in any setting, ever.

I am not saying that every man has to behave in exactly this manner, while every woman must do exactly and only that, nor am I saying that we should all have 17 children and stove the pet dog’s head in when it starts to get a bit limpy. It’s just that I think people can still enjoy owning dogs without turning every single spot in the country into a twopenny Crufts. Humans and animals are not the same. The public domain and the home are not the same. And I’m not sure all three of those pram-pugs were actually alive. Judging by the smell, they were probably down to the last one.

On the plus side, seeing quite so many dogs in one spot has inspired my next stylish yet practical accessory. Très chic, non?