Time was when couples acquiring a dog was the thin end of the wedge pre-spawning: a test-drive to see whether the relationship could handle children. These days, Brits are getting dogs instead of having offspring. Research from The Times has revealed that a third of English postcodes have more hounds than nippers, with the number of “dinkwads” — dual income, no kids, with a dog — rocketing. The country can claim 13 million canines, up from 9 million pre-pandemic. The number of children is about 15 mill, but growth is stagnant.
A mass anthropomorphism has ensued, in which dogs are given social media profiles, reprehensible “cute” costumes, and spa days. They are chosen for their baby faces and ability to be carted about in a papoose, “dog mums” and “dog dads” looking on with the frenzied adoration actual parents feel obliged to suppress. As one behaviourist puts it: “The dog forms the central source of love.”
Well, obv. My own south London postcode is all girls, gays and hounds — a canine utopia in which we race about pandering to our charges’ needs. Obviously, I am way too cool to refer to myself as a “dog mum”. Pimlico, my blue whippet, won’t even wear a coat when it’s Baltic and has only ever had one bath after a particularly egregious fox excrement incident. But my partner, Terence, and I are definitely dog parents. Witness his Christmas windows-cum-shrine: two golden whippet icons crying out for the billing “That childless couple that makes a graven image of their dog”.
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Pim is our life: we are this bitch’s bitch. We cart about more kit for her than our parent friends ever dreamt of: treats, velvet blankets, bowls from which she is prepared to drink, co-ordinating lead options depending on my outfit. In turn, she doesn’t so much interfere with our sex life as destroy it, sleeping in the middle of us, or between our legs. We are constantly speculating on her emotions, interpreting her many noises, coming up with fey nicknames for her, and wrangling over whom she loves more. (Terence as hype master, me for comfort.)
Betts’s blue whippet, Pimlico
GEMMA DAY FOR THE TIMES
Meanwhile, her career is considerably better than mine. Having been on the cover of four national newspapers and starred in Bazaar’s September fashion issue, she is frequently recognised. Out walking only recently, a car screeched to a halt and a dashing chap said: “Is it…” I preened, before he added “…Pimlico Betts-Derbyshire?”
I actually adore babies — and children, for that matter — as people are forever bemusedly pointing out. But somehow this never equated with wanting one of my own. I boast a lot of young people in my life, consider them among my closest friends. However, Pim definitely takes the place a child would occupy. Those anxiety nightmares mothers are beset by? I have them about her. I fret about her demise daily and am always patting her ribs to check that they’re moving. What is it that mothers say about children? That it’s like having your heart wandering about in the world? That’s precisely how I feel, only mine’s chasing squirrels. (I entice them for her — sue me.)
My big little love is the relationship of my not-so-young life. Clever, kind, beautiful, witty, she dominates every waking hour. If she were a nipper, I’d have to be sensible: equip her for independence, prove she’s not the centre of everybody’s existence. As she’s a dog, I can kiss her, cosset her, and let her lick the snot from my cold nose.
Recently, I acquired my first old-person injury. Pim put my fiftysomething hip out basking on top of me. How has a mere whippet achieved this? Because — and here we enter Times exclusive territory — Pim may be duff-upward, having enjoyed the hottest of hot dates in November. We’re off for a scan today. Dog grandmother? I’ll keep you posted.
The single woman
By Katie Glass
Katie Glass with her dog, Bear
CARMEL KING
“Do I baby my dog, Bear?” I wondered as I blended his warm goat milk for breakfast before squeezing us into matching jumpers.
Like you, I’d read this weekend’s reports that now in some areas of England dogs outnumber children due to the rise of Gen Z and millennial “dinkwads”. Although poor Bear, a labrador, is surviving in my modest one-income family.
The rise of dog-spring is dramatic now there are 13 million dogs in the UK and only 15 million kids. Some of the reasons are sympathetic: the cost of childcare, the cost of living, the price of homes with second bedrooms (not to mention the proliferation of dogs during Covid). What people find harder to stomach is that a single woman like me would choose to have a dog over a baby, and also choose to mollycoddle him.
As Bear’s pawrent (a Dogs Trust survey found two thirds of 25 to 34-year-olds see themselves “as their dog’s parent”) I buy him pupcakes, puppuccinos and a wardrobe of clothes: he has a Barbie-pink raincoat, a selection of jumpers and, in most rooms of my house, his own chaise longue.
His Bella & Duke raw food subscription costs more than I spend at Riverford. He spent Christmas with a red bow attached to his collar, chewing open presents.
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I baby him by making up nicknames for him (“The Furry Prince”); by singing songs I insert his name into (“Little Bearface, Little Bearface” to the tune of Little Donkey) and rocking all 40kg of him on my lap, telling him the story of how I adopted him: “And then I drove to a rescue in Wales!” I even amended my Hinge profile to state I was seeking a Bear-by daddy for him.
I tried to make one of those sonograms with a picture of him in my womb, but sadly my Photoshop skills aren’t up to it.
Playing at being a dog parent is fun. Short of a child to buy tiny tutus or little jackets emblazoned with dinosaurs for, Bear is a surrogate baby who allows me to indulge similar whims.
But seeing myself as a dog mother isn’t all about spoiling him — it’s also the flood of feelings I get that makes me want to care for and nurture him. That makes me get out of bed on frosty mornings and take hour-long walks in minus temperatures, or drive for days out at the beach because it brings me joy to see Bear’s happiness. It’s the pride I feel when Bear learns something new, and the disappointment when he ignores me again. It’s being touched by knowing his vulnerability means he needs me to protect him.
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Research suggests this isn’t just my personal madness, but that as dogs have become more domesticated and cuter (with bigger eyes and flatter faces) our brains now respond to them as we do to babies. A study at Harvard University, in which mothers were placed in fMRI machines and shown images of dogs and children, found their brains similarly lit up when they saw their own human and furry offspring.
Should this be surprising? As humans, we crave giving love. As a childless woman who tried but couldn’t have babies, I suppose Bear is a receptacle for all the love I have to give. (Although he’s less work than a human child — you can’t leave a baby with a Kong full of kibble while you go out to the theatre.)
I suspect this is true for other Gen Z and millennial women who have chosen not to have children. More surprising to me is the scorn with which dog mothers like me are met — far angrier than the opprobrium aimed at fathers who don’t do their bit.
Just this weekend the American writer Justin Murphy wrote a viral post on X admitting he can barely stomach ten minutes a day with his own toddler without his blood boiling. No wonder so many women like me would rather spend their days making cakes for dogs we can parent alone than subject ourselves to parenting a human baby, who’d bind us for life to another child.