Letters: One change that people could consider is foregoing dog ownership

One change that people could consider is foregoing dog ownership. Research has shown that a medium-sized dog has the same footprint as an SUV (Vale and Vale, 2009) and the 9.9m dogs in the UK are responsible for around 64m tonnes of greenhouse gases per year.

Dramatically reducing the number and size of dogs - in Yorkshire, each household has an average of 1.3 dogs - would have other welcome effects of addressing the often-discussed problems of fouling, aggressive behaviours, noise from barking and sheep worrying. Many families would no doubt welcome the additional money made available by giving up expensive, damaging and unnecessary dog ownership.

A further benefit would be that some vets would also be freed to retrain to work with large animals where there is a shortage.

Of course, working and assistance dogs perform valuable functions, as do animals owned by the lonely or those with certain mental ill-health conditions, but I urge other dog owners to think about whether they might forego these pets in the interests of wider society and the planet.

A Thwiepp

S8