Categories: PETS

Children aren’t ruining outdoor spaces


Outdoor play has declined 50 per cent, experts say – it's time we talked about dogs dominating our parks and green spaces

I love dogs. My son, Sam, is named partly after my uncle’s Border collie. My uncle was a Welsh dairy farmer and Sam was his working dog. I loved that boy as much as an eight-year-old can love any animal, which is a lot.

You know what I don’t love? A hundred dogs. And that’s getting to be the situation in the UK’s parks and green spaces at the moment.

This week, Baroness Longfield, former Children’s Commissioner for England, recommended the removal of No Ball Games signs, as part of a series of measures to get more children playing outside. The signs are a hangover from a time when they – shock horror – actually did go out to play ball games in the fresh air, rather than mouldering inside playing single shooter games on a 50in screen. Blasted kids were everywhere, running about – probably laughing – kicking balls and loudly enjoying themselves. They were declared a nuisance and told to clear off.

The modern desperation to get kids outside with a ball reveals the critical tension we have with our urban green spaces. Who are they for? Children playing ball games? People from no-smoking flats having a quiet fag? Or owners exercising their dogs?

The Raising the Nation Play Commission warns outdoor play has declined by 50 per cent, because of traffic, fear about crime, and “public spaces where young people are not welcome”. They’re right on all counts, but have missed another reason. Dog ownership has shot up in this country – while birth rates plummet. Those thousands of puppies bought in lockdown haven’t gone anywhere – they are all now five years old. And our parks have become a battleground between parents and children, and dog owners.

‘A dog might not necessarily actually do anything bad, but they all have the capacity to,’ says Esther Walker (Photo: Jason Alden)

People love their dogs and identify very closely with them. They feel their dog can do no wrong, just as parents have a very glowing, defensive view of their children. It’s the same delusion.

So if an excited off-leash dog meets a toddler in the park, the parent freaks – and the dog owner gets annoyed that the parent views its lovely, gentle pet as a dangerous threat.

I’m with the parents here, because dogs do pose a threat – all of them.

A dog might not necessarily actually do anything bad, but they all have the capacity to. When you meet an unfamiliar dog, you can’t just assume it’s a sweetie. As I’ve said, I love dogs, but I would never extend my hand towards or touch any unfamiliar dog and have taught my children never to do this, either. You just don’t know.

For owners to be offended that strangers can’t tell from a single glance that their dog is angelic is absolutely idiotic and displays a lack of empathy that is borderline psychotic. In 2023 there was a 21 per cent increase in recorded dog attacks in England and Wales, with 30,539 offences. This is mostly dogs biting strangers, by the way – not dogs biting their owners. And I bet you every single owner of the biter was surprised.

While small children can of course behave badly and be seriously annoying, they are very unlikely to bite a stranger and if they did, it would be unlikely to be serious.

Dogs bite strangers all the time, see the above statistic. Even “nice” dogs. We have a childish desire for the bond between animal and human to transcend basic nature and to be something magical, but the bottom line is a really “nice” dog I know bit a three-year-old and had to be put down.

When my children were small there weren’t nearly as many dogs in the park, because it was 2013 and the world hadn’t gone Labradoodle doolally, but if my child was in a buggy, and a Labrador swiped their roll out of their hand, who is at fault? The Labrador, tempted by food at nose-height? Me? The child?

No one is to blame. Like the ongoing clash between pedestrians, car drivers and cyclists, different interest groups sharing the same space is always going to be fraught.

But in my view, some breeds of dog are a really stupid idea if you live in a town. I see completely inappropriate breeds in my local park all the time – working dogs like pointers, Border collies, spaniels, retrievers and Labradors on their single, hour-long walk that day, going absolutely bonkers.

It’s not only that many are poorly trained and have terrible or even zero recall, it’s that they are not getting enough daily stimulation. Any working dog, no matter how well trained, will lose its mind if it isn’t exercised enough.

Lapdogs – King Charles spaniels, toy poodles, bichons frisés, Pomeranians, pugs – were all bred for limited, low exercise spaces and have historically been the traditional choice for urban areas for a reason. But I suppose people don’t think they’re very cool.

I’m not saying it’s your dog that’s the problem. But it’s many, many dogs that are absolutely the problem and I’m afraid they kind of justifiably give all dog owners a bad name. Just like those bastard joggers who steam down park paths, bashing old ladies out of the way with their gigantic shoulders, or up-themselves cyclists who run red lights or cycle the wrong way down roads. The dog problem is made worse by just how many of them there are.

No parent wants its child to be bitten by a dog, or to grow up afraid of them. And, I know dog owners don’t want to hear this, but those two things are more important than your need for everyone to love your pet.





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Doggone Well Staff

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