Dogs now allowed in John Lewis stores - good idea or not?

Some shops have somewhere to tie dogs up and bowls of water. I often see dogs tied up outside our village Co-op while their owners are food shopping.

A shop is not a place to take a dog, with the exception of guide and trained assistance dogs.

Anyone who even thinks it is needs to be told not to be so selfish and self-centred.

Dogs other than Guide Dogs are not allowed in any supermarket, shop or store here due to hygiene reasons.

But this is a timely post as my friend, who lives on a farm has just had her ear and part of her mouth torn away by one of her beloved dogs.

She was sitting reading at the time.
Now she will need months of plastic surgery.

It is in the interest of the people who have to go to any shop, especially a shopping mall or shopping precinct that dog owners should be legally forbidden to bring dogs with them whilst shopping for hygiene purposes

retrieves balls when asked to do so
That could be useful in JL - you could train a dog to fetch what you needed to buy!

Exactly Sara65 it would be quite difficult just to wander round the store looking at this and that with a dog in tow.
Bellasnana it may well depend on the dog but who is going to police that. Will there be colleague to say 'this dog is fine' or 'this dog is not allowed' .

Daisymae

But surely people shopping with Dogs, are going to spend less time browsing than people without, and are then less likely to buy.

I could spend hours wandering around JL, but I think if I had a dog with me, Id be straight in and out.

The same could be said for shopping with children of course!

This is a business decision, they must have researched that there will be more footfall if dogs are admitted.

The admission of dogs, does not, of course, extend to the other side of the partnership, Waitrose, but I didn't really need to tell you that, did I?

I think the difference is that when an animal is part of your family you can dictate how your dog interacts with you - it’s when it becomes part of ‘human’ activities then it seems to be a case that everyone round about you has to bend to the dog or at least accept barking/fighting/worse. We went to a country park the other day and the play area is dog free - it was full of children and of course someone had decided to ignore it and let their (very cute) dog tear around the place. A whole country park to walk it in, but nope! No-one else the slightest say in how the dog was managed - and it would have required them to challenge the dog owner, which we all know often doesn’t end well.

Srn63

You sound like a very responsible dog owner, but you must know that not everyone is, you list all the things your dog would never do, but some dogs do.

wildswan - dogs and small children are an excellent mix, if both are trained and supervised effectively. depends on the dog of course, our huge dog can knock a toddler over with a wag of her tail, so she's excluded. She's fabulous with six years and above, walks perfectly on her lead, retrieves balls when asked to do so and loved scent/finding games with them.

It seems that the dogs idea is to potentially increase footfall - or 'pawfall' as my contact suggested. The percentage increase is unlikely to be very high, if at all.
I am not sure that the catering staff will be entirely happy!

I must admit that my children did sometimes have "nappy explosion situations", so, much to my horror, the contents of their nappies were not always enclosed! I think if you take the attitude that anything that a child sits in outside the house could potentially have been contaminated by whatever, you would never let your child sit on anything. I am a dog lover and as such would like to take them everywhere with me, I know this is not practical nor always in the dogs best interests but I can assure you he will not urinate or defecate in a shop, he will not pester you to be stroked or salivate over you, he will do as he is told and not run around restaurants or pubs or start crying because he is bored or can't have what he wants, he will bark though just as people talk loudly at times and children cry. Live and let live I say I can't see John Lewis being overrun by dogs especially not by me, I always shop on line anyway, but it is nice to have the option to shop with your dog.

The contents of dirty nappies are enclosed - a dogs bum isn’t. I’m with wild on this one, that’s a child/toddler seat.

wildswan in all stores in the US they provide cleansing wipes for your shopping trolley. Also, when my DGD was small, she had a ‘cart cover’ which went over the seat part.

I’m sure my daughter’s dog is a lot cleaner than a child sitting in the cart with a dirty nappy, but hey ho, each to their own.

Bellasnana I'm afraid I would object to a dog in a trolley as in your picture. Am I then supposed to put my toddler into the same trolley - sitting on top of where the dog's bum has been. I am not a "germophobe" or a clean freak - but small children and dogs are not a good mix.

These prams are for old or ill dogs - there are a couple locally who are pushed around in them. I suppose it’s a way of their owners prolonging the inevitable

Maw

Prams for “mad dogs”
To go out in the midday sun presumably!

Slightly off subject but when we were on holiday this year we saw some dogs being pushed around in pushchair/pram type things. These were not baby prams but custom mad dog prams. I was wondering when this began and whether they are sick dogs, lazy dogs, tired dogs.

It depends on the dog. My daughter, who lives in the US, has adopted a little dog who had been abandoned. She takes him everywhere as he is very anxious when left alone. She tells me he is very well behaved and loves going shopping!
See photo.?

Harrods!

Interestingly though, Harris’s website says it doesn’t allow dogs (unless Assistance ones) for their customer’s safety
www.harrods.com/en-gb/faq/in-store

I wonder if they turn a blind eye if the customer is spending enough money?!

I can remember seeing pampered pooches in Harrods in “the old days” - i.e. the 70’s

Has not hasn’t. Predictive text, doh!