The Fat Badgers have always been dog friendly, we love to see a dog in a pub and more than half the Fat Badgers have a doggie companion. Some of us that don’t have a dog are only without a pup because we have busy social or work lives that would make it too difficult to properly care for them. One of those was Fat Badger Kilo who has spent more than a year of his life skiing and more than a year of it sailing. He also had to spend some time in an office to earn enough fun tokens to afford travelling around the United Kingdom checking out pubs for Fat Badgers. You also can’t take a dog to football matches, rock concerts, into stately homes or cathedrals and you certainly can’t take them parachuting or scuba diving so almost all Kilo’s hobbies weren’t conducive to having a dog. That all changed in 2023 when Fat Badger Kilo’s nephew announced he was thinking of getting a Golden Retriever and with Kilo’s knees starting to get a bit knackered and starting to curtail some of his hobbies he looked at the Kennel Club website to see if there were any litters in the Midlands. There were some in Warwick, all named after Queen songs so he though “I could name him Freddie” after the best band front man he’d ever seen live. After failing to find the time to go and see this litter, the announcement came that Kilo’s nephew was off to see a litter. “Nobody goes to look at Golden Retriever puppies and says - nah, I think I’ll leave it thanks” said Kilo. The following day after a phone call from Fat Badger Stakesy who just happened to say “I can’t believe you’ve never had a dog” Kilo then looked at the Kennel Club website again to find another litter in Willenhall - even closer and all born on the 17th April “I’d share a birthday with my dog”! A quick phone call to the breeder and “can I come and see them?” with the reply “Yes no problem, when do you want to come?” - “err….now?” Having mentioned the previous litter, the breeder said “I love the name Freddie”

Decision made!

Freddie moved into his new home on the 12th June 2023 and instantly looked cute with his new toy pig and fluffy bone. Neither lasted too long. Those that have had new puppies join the family home will know that it’s a terrifying time, you have to make sure they don’t meet other dogs until a week after they have had injections, you need to make sure that the back garden is clear of rats as they carry disease dangerous to puppies and you can’t leave rat poison lying around and most importantly, you can’t go to the pub and leave him on his own. So, like most people, they managed six of the seven days following his injections and risked by going for a beer, Kilo chose the pub, The Railwayman’s Arms on Bridgnorth railway station and Freddie chose the beer. He picked Batham’s Bitter which was the correct choice. It’s been a slow learning curve of finding out which pubs think he’s either a killer or smells of shit and the good pubs that welcome him with open arms and even think he’s nearly as cute as his owner.

The Darkside

To some, a dog-friendly pubs means dogs running amok and terrorising unsuspecting customers, stealing food from people's plates and causing customers to go down with deadly diseases. If there's ever a newspaper article about dogs in pubs you get responses from people of: • "Leave your dog at home. Lots of people don't like dogs and don't want them anywhere near." • "I rarely see problem children when I go out, but these days I see noisy dogs with irresponsible owners everywhere I go!" • "I don't want smelly dogs getting their hair and slobber everywhere when I want to eat!" • "Leave the dog at home and have some consideration for others. What about people with allergies? huh?" • "If they have a separate room for people with their dogs fine, but why should others have to put up with them especially if there's food." • "It’s not just pubs, a lot of those people want to take their dog with them everywhere even in bed with them. How weird is that." Yes it’s weird that some people want to sleep in the same bed as their dog but what has that got to do with the dog sitting next to a small table while his owner sups a pint? Lots of people might not like you, but they don’t ask for you to be left at home! In a UK pub: We've never seen a dog bite someone We've never seen a dog hit someone with a bar stool We've never seen a dog swear We've never seen a dog pull a waiter's tie We've never seen a dog try to look down a barmaid's shirt We've never seen a dog sit on the pool table We've never seen a dog call the landlord a twat We've never seen a dog steal the charity box We've never seen a dog leave without paying for his food We've never seen a dog steal a glass because it says 'Guinness' on it We've never seen a dog shove an empty crisp packet down the side of a seat We've never seen a dog crash a car after leaving the pub We have witnessed humans doing all of the above though so should all humans be banned from all pubs because of the few ‘bad apples’? A survey of the UK hospitality industry stated that 98% of dog friendly pubs believe that business has improved due to canines being allowed on the premises, yet 76% of pub managers think health and safety laws may prevent dogs from being allowed in their establishments, when in fact this is not the case. The laws state that only food preparation areas are out of bounds and canine access to other areas, including where food is served and sold, is determined by the manager. 21 pubs in the UK are closing each week so with 8.5 million dog owners in the United Kingdom, you would think that those that don’t allow dogs would recognise that alienating a huge proportion of possible customers isn’t the most intelligent thing to do. However maybe their intelligence is a contributing factor as to why some of those pubs are failing. We aren’t here to try and convince the likes of Wetherspoons or indeed any other pub to suddenly change their policy, it’s up to them. It would be nice if there was a polite notice on the door saying “Sorry, no dogs allowed” rather than shouting from the bar “Dogs aren’t allowed in mate” This happened recently to us in Stourbridge when we went to try a Micropub despite the pub only having one customer. That customer then suddenly appeared and shouted up the street “try the Hop Vault - they’re dog friendly” - We had three very nice pints of excellent cask ale and have added the pub to our upcoming list of Fat Badger ‘Lads Night Outs’ We’ve also added them to our guide but can’t be bothered to add the other Micropub in Stourbridge as we’ve no idea if it’s any good

Dog Friendly Pubs

Many pubs are openly friendly to our four legged friends whilst some are hostile - we have a map of those that we know are friendly.

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