A study recently carried out by the Royal Veterinary College and funded by Battersea Dogs and Cats Home provided figures on something many of us have been considering for some time now. Namely, that as the cost-of-living crisis goes on, dog owners are gradually reducing the amount of training and behavioural support they provide.
The Royal Veterinary College carried out a survey of 770 UK owners who had bought puppies during the pandemic. More than one-third said the crisis had affected their household spending. Although over 80 percent had not altered the way they looked after their dog, often making changes to their own lifestyle to protect their pets, 10.8 percent expected to make negative changes in the next six months. Over one fifth had already canceled planned training or had become less likely to obtain professional behaviour advice.
The figure alone is more important than it at first sight seems.
Why training is the first domino
Behavioural problems are constantly among the leading reasons why dogs are relinquished. This refers not to aggressive behaviour but to ordinary issues such as distress when left alone, reactivity on a lead, and resource guarding, all of which can become unmanageable if professional help is not sought early. Training and behavioural support should not be seen as an optional extra to owning a dog; it is preventive care comparable to vaccinations. Owners are therefore putting themselves in a position where the very intervention that could have prevented a manageable problem from turning into a crisis is the one they discard first.
Where One Welfare comes in
Our podcast this week explored the One Welfare approach, which shows that animal welfare, human wellbeing, and the financial and social difficulties facing a household are all interconnected. It’s impossible to evaluate a dog’s welfare or the chances of relinquishment without considering the pressure on the person with the lead.
This study is a small-scale example of the One Welfare approach. It is not actually about dog owners not caring about behaviour; rather, it is about how financial difficulty alters the decisions owners make, with behaviour support being the first thing to be cut. The same pattern is repeatedly seen in cases of relinquishment: it seldom begins with a bad owner, but with an owner under pressure who gradually reduces the support their dog requires, and the dog ends up bearing the consequences of a decision that was never really about the dog.
What this means for the sector
Dr Rowena Packer’s view should be kept in mind: the objective is not to criticise owners for reducing their spending, but to support them before hardship turns into a welfare crisis. In order to achieve this, behavioural advice must be genuinely accessible when owners are already distancing themselves from it because of cost; this can be done through free helplines, low-cost clinics, or charity-run classes, and the early provision of behavioural support should clearly be presented as a measure aimed at preventing relinquishment rather than as an optional extra.
The dogs in the study are not yet in crisis. That is precisely why the data is important—it creates an opportunity to intervene before the eight out of ten owners currently looking after their dogs at the cost of their own wellbeing become the one in ten who can no longer do so.
How is Dog Training and Behaviour Valued?
