Perfect timing: My return from the BlogPaws pet bloggers conference and its concomitant flurry of catch-up activities coincides with the publication of a guest post about the book Marcus of Umbria that I wrote for A Traveler’s Library, a site you should check out even when I’m not on it. In case you were wondering why I’m straying from my usual bailiwick, I’m not: Marcus is a dog.
Vera Marie Badertscher, the site’s creator, invites comments about different cultural attitudes towards dogs — as I do here. Our pet blogging community tends to wax rhapsodic about Europeans’ animal enlightenment but that’s a drastic oversimplification, as evidenced not only by the experience detailed in Marcus of Umbria but also by a post by my Twitter pal @Kenzo_HW, who describes the Breed Specific Legislation enacted in advanced (NOT!) Denmark of all places. Read his update, which links to the original story, here.
Too bad I’ve never been to the Tivoli Gardens. Now I’ve only got Hamlet and really bad dog laws in my head when I think of Denmark. Here’s a thought. Maybe if people write to the legislators and tell them that they’re doing for Denmark what Stieg Larsson has done for Sweden… Oh, never mind. I gather murder and sex trafficking tourism is a hot ticket there.
Thank you for expressing this Edie. You are so much better with words then I could ever be.
We Europeans talk, but don’t walk the talk. At all. The fact that populistic parties can take it this far once more is an outrage. We should be so ashamed. I know I am.
Your comment got me to thinking about my travels in Europe and just want to say, Europe is very diverse.! The only country I recall being truly dog friendly in the sense that dogs were allowed everywhere, or so it seemed to me, was France. Dogs lounging around in restaurants and cafes (indoors) and on trains, and such. I loved that.
I am definitely no expert on the whole of Europe (only lived in Holland, Switzerland and Denmark). So thank you for making that clear. Although it would be nice to be 🙂
Travelling by train, visiting cafes and restaurants etc. with your dog is also possible in Denmark. You can even do that with the banned breeds, as long as they would be muzzled. Although I have not seen one yet that wears a muzzle the places I have ventured.
I am not sure about France. I heard they banned 7 breeds, among which the Rottweiler, but we would need a French person to comment on that allegetion.
Less guy, more dog. Definitely.
Great minds…I seem to recall you said something to that effect in your review of the book on your blog.
Tivoli was great, as was Hamlet’s castle, but those good experiences and my memories of travel in the countryside and knocking around city streets getting the local flavor have now been overshadowed thanks to BSL, the regressive policy aimed against 12 dog breeds…though they can add more breeds to that in a couple of years!
This from a place that values people and enjoying life over things, has health care and university education for all…it just doesn’t fit. But whenever and wherever you toss in that element of fear, the extreme minority seems to make the most noise and followers do what they do best.
I don’t know about BSL, but I can think of a few people I’d like to muzzle to keep off the airwaves during this lovely season of electioneering..:)