Thread by @Telegraph

🐕‍🦺The unstoppable rise of the 'dog baby'

Maybe the Pope's right, and we are putting canines above children when we feel the need to nurture…

#Thread 👇

telegraph.co.uk/family/pets/un…

At a general audience in the Vatican this week, Pope Francis castigated "selfish" couples who "substitute cats and dogs for children" as guilty of "taking away our humanity"

❓Are dogs – who account for a third of all the nation’s pets – really taking over Britain?

💩And not just by leaving their mark on its pavements

There is currently a glut of them, the fallout from the 3.4 million households (11.4 per cent of the total in the UK) who are reported to have got a pet during the pandemic – many of whom regretted it

📞One local dog walker tells me that she currently gets "two or three calls a week" for families who enthusiastically took on a lockdown puppy, but now can’t manage it

🗣️"I feel like putting the phone down," she says.

"What about the dog’s needs, rather than the human ones?"

🐶During the first lockdown of 2020, the Pets4Homes website reported that there were some 420 buyers for every puppy.

The top breeds in this dog-rush were:
🔴Cocker spaniels
🔴Cavapoos
🔴Cockapoos
🔴Dachshunds
🔴German shepherds

❓Did you get a dog during the pandemic?

🔎Read the full report here 👇

telegraph.co.uk/family/pets/un…