My local as a lad, The Red Lion, was a mid-seventies shit-hole in the era before anybody thought that pubs should be anything more than a place that men could meet and get drunk.
It was rough as arseholes, but the only fight I ever saw there was between a couple of dogs that took exception to each other and overturned the old boys table by the cigarette machine.
That was back in the days when old men, dogs and cigarettes were welcome in our pubs.
About fifteen years ago, on leaving a Weatherspoons, a chatted to a couple sat outside in the cold with their collie. They explained that the dog was unwelcome in the bar and had to endure the weather as a result. I assumed that this was just indicative of Weatherspoons corporate sprawl in its mission to destroy the English pub.
It was therefore a bitter disappointment to see that the no-dogs policy won, as bars became anodyne and child-centered and the rest of us had to sit at home unwanted with our cheap supermarket tinnies.
However, my local now, which was poorly run until a year ago, is undergoing a rennaisance, not just in employing staff who actually know how to serve, but in being indiscriminate as to who they allow in.
There were four dogs in tonight. The big wolf dog, who is a regular; a large headed sweetheart of a Lab cross who was love on legs; a rather non pit-bull variant poorly supervised by some slag with low-self esteem, and finally, with a large group of lesbians on a denim-themed night out, a big grey aging Lurcher with the longest snout I've ever seen.
The best part was when the Lurcher joined it's lesbian friends in the restaurant section. No one objected, and the sky didn't fall in, so a little bit of England managed to sprout like a lily through asphalt.
Dogs in pubs NOW! Woof Woof!
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