The palgrave international handbook of a 160

Status Dogs

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animal welfare issues or simply more cost-effective means for government to
address harms to people? Formal responses appear to demonstrate little
concern for the dogs and the harms perpetrated by their owners and the
state. And while informal intervention programmes with an emphasis on
education, training and awareness-raising as a means of improving welfare
standards and preventing irresponsible behaviour have emerged, there is, to
their detriment, little in the way of evaluation of their impact and effectiveness, a sadly commonplace issue where animal-related interventions are
concerned (see chapter on Interventions with animal abuse offenders herein).
On the positive side, I find that dogs act as “tickets” for people to socialise and
develop relationships, they facilitate the diversification of social networks, and
they act as an avenue to political participation. On the negative side, dog
ownership and dog breeds can become the basis for clique formation, stereotypes,
and boundary formation, serving as grounds for exclusion. (Bueker 2013).

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