In Berlin, dogs are welcome almost everywhere, something that surprises – then delights or horrifies – visitors from abroad, including from New Zealand.
Observing how dogs are treated in Germany, a friend in Auckland complained she was once forced to leave a cafe because of her dog. “I mean, our table was outside on the street,” she argued. “And the dog’s lying on the ground, not sitting with us!”
Not a problem here. There are more than 10 million dogs in Germany, and in Berlin, you can take your canine companion into most restaurants and bars. Four-legged friends are also allowed into most shops (except supermarkets) and offices, and on public transport.
One Berlin think tank even lists a dog as an official team member. “Watson … contributes to ongoing social commentary and promotes interspecies dialogue,” the witty analysts at the Global Public Policy Institute wrote. “His active research interests include food waste reduction and bird watching [and] treat scenario planning.”
And as a local columnist has pointed out, Berliners are renowned for being rude and unfriendly, yet the city “loves dogs as much as it hates babies”.
That kind of bestial cordiality is also found in other European cities, including Paris, Amsterdam and Rome. There are similarly dog-friendly folk in Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Latvia and Lithuania, among others.
Meanwhile, Spain and Portugal have much stricter rules. In Croatia, one Berlin dog and her owner were forced off a daytime train onto a slower night train because, the grumpy stationmaster explained, “animals are not allowed on daytime transport”.
Why are dogs so welcome in Berlin? And does that mean Germans are potentially better people than Croatians?
Researchers say the “why” has to do with culture and environment. For instance, New Zealand farmers will tell you your designer-clad metropolitan dog would prefer to be herding sheep. That might be why Auckland cafes are reluctant to accept hairy guests: New Zealand has a tradition of working dogs.
Another example: in the Middle East, religious rules say dogs are dirty and may be kept only for a purpose, such as guarding the house. Attitudes towards dogs have actually been changing for more than a decade now.
In Baghdad and Beirut, having a pet dog is, in some ways, a sort of status symbol. Not so much in more conservative Saudi Arabia, where, in 2019, there was only 1.3 companion dogs per 1000 people. In the US that year, there were 225 dogs per 1000 people.
It’s impossible to say if that makes some societies better. Empathising with other creatures of any variety is surely a positive, but there’s not much research on the question. What there is seems to suggest that the more welcoming a society is to dogs, the more likely it is to be urban, consumerist, lonely and less fertile.
Recently, researchers in Hungary tried to figure out how the growing number of pet dogs in Europe related to falling fertility rates. Were people replacing babies with puppies? they asked.
Their conclusion, in a March 2025 paper: “The trends in companion-dog ownership suggest that, in Western cultures, there is a significant gap in caregiving and [societal] acceptance.”
Dogs, they suggest, are rarely child substitutes but they do help fill an emotional void in modern society. The increasing number of dogs, and the way we treat them, is likely more about the way we live today, separated from extended family and more isolated in general.
That makes sense. After all, the only time total strangers in Berlin will happily speak to one another on the street is when their dogs are sniffing each other’s genitalia.
Cathrin Schaer is a freelance journalist living in Berlin.
