MAKING A DOG’
One girl and her canine companion take a bite of a new paradise for pooches where the daily dishes are briny beer, liver brownies and canine cookies... There’s a Doggie Dock by the toilets
ISWIG thirstily from the beer bottle in my hand, gulping it down, and just as the briny, gravy liquid lathers my taste-buds, I realise, with horror, I’ve made a terrible mistake.
‘I think you’re the first human to do that’, chuckles Tim Herron, who runs the Dirty Onion bar here in Belfast, while I deep breaths and try not to vomit all over the floor. He points to the menu where it encourages punters to enjoy ‘a cold one with your best pal’ next to a picture of the Snuffles beer I’ve just guzzled and a description of its chicken and barley flavours — no booze, no hops.
Now, this isn’t some tall tale but a real life dispatch from up here in Doggie Heaven. Myself and my dog Sonny Jim are sniffing around Belfast, on foot of a hot lead that it’s fast becoming Ireland’s very own piece of paradise for our four-legged furries.
Reports are drooling south about doggie pub-crawls, doggie-only bars and doggie menus, so we’ve come to see if it’s true or just a waggy dog story.
Wandering around Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, trying to find the Dirty Onion bar, I yank Sonny Jim’s leash to pull him in off the road, just as a white mini van with a gigantic pug painted on its back doors blasts past.
Turns out it’s the Poop Police, patrolling the mean cobbled streets of Belfast’s answer to Temple Bar and slapping anyone not cleaning up after their mutts with an on-the-spot €175 fine.
It’s late afternoon and workers and tourists mooch in and out of the maze of bars, restaurants and beer gardens on Hill Street.
But a few weeks ago, hundreds of barking revellers descended on the fashionable area, their tongues hanging out with the thirst.
The area has long been a mecca for tourists however, it wasn’t busloads of Europeans livening up the place but French bulldogs, German Shepherds and Catalan Sheepdogs, along with their barking mad owners, all following their wet noses to The Dirty Onion — while the Poop Police kept a close eye on proceedings.
It was the bar’s third Pooch Social, the first one last year attracted 100 party animals, with 200 following the pack to the second and 300 at the latest bash.
In a bid to beat the hairy crowds, myself and my greyhound lurcher Sonny Jim — who I rescued as a foster from the DSPCA while researching a story about retired greyhounds being exported for China’s burgeoning racing industry — headed North ahead of the Furry Army.
Admittedly, Sonny Jim’s a seasoned party animal. He loves the craic down the pub as much as his mother and is a popular character around Dublin’s dog-friendly watering holes. If he’s lucky, he’ll hustle the first lick of a creamy Guinness or an enamoured punter will chuck him a Tayto or a pork scratching.
Before they know it, Sonny Jim — using his puppy dog eyes to magnetic effect — will craftily embezzle the boozed-up punter out of the entire packet. You snooze, you lose, goes Sonny Jim’s mantra, and he eschews snoozing, in favour of fleecing the next drunken fool — not to give the dog a bad name, of course.
But there’s no need for such dirty tricks at the Dirty Onion. For here, the dog is king.
Manager Tim Herron has just launched a doggie menu and kindly invited Sonny Jim — who considers himself a Very Important Pooch (VIP) — to be among the first to get his grubby paws on it. They say every dog has its day and today it’s Sonny Jim’s. Along to help out with Sonny’s first photoshoot is a pal called Paul. He often visits with bags of dog bones, magically transforming the intensely-stubborn Sonny Jim into something of a circus dog, and we could do with a few of those moves today. We’re no sooner in the beer garden gate when Sonny Jim cocks his leg and pees up against a bar stool. I’m much more dignified so head for the outside ladies room where I discover a ‘Doggie Dock’ outside — an ingenious touch dog owners will truly marvel at. It’s a tie-up spot, with two rings – just like the old horse tether rings — which you click your lead onto while dashing to the loo. Above the tether station is a Pooch Pub Rules sign advising ‘Doggos’ about the water bowls and Scooby snacks available at the bar, telling them to ‘be nice’ to other dogs and warning them about biting. There are no doormen or guard dogs eyeing potential mad dogs or troublemakers up and down, so how does Tim stop brawls breaking out? ‘There’s the odd growl but we’ve never had a brawl or a full-on fight,’ he says. ‘There’s been no hassle. If dogs are angry with other dogs owners don’t tend bring them in.’ The ‘Hoomans’ are urged to pick up any messy business, keep doggos on leashes and stay away from the chicken restaurant upstairs, a dog-free
zone. I shield the sign from Sonny Jim’s puppy dog eyes. He loves chicken and we wouldn’t want to rub him up the wrong way but turns out in this high-end joint, Sonny wouldn’t give a chick a second glance anyway.
Tim adds: ‘We never have to tell dog-owners what to do — they’re well used to minding and picking up and are very responsible.’
Once inside the bar, a very welltrained bartender called Hannah rushes over with a red water bowl, ‘I can smell them coming,’ she laughs.
Sonny Jim turns up his nose as not far behind her is Tim, who arrives to our table with the bottle of Snuffle dog beer and a large cookie jar filled to the brim with dog biscuits.
The beer bottle has a dog on the front, not unlike a cool craft beer bottle, and I doubt I’ll be the last one to be duped by its cute branding. But knowing this doesn’t take away the vile taste in my mouth.
Tim is also holding a cushionsized furry paw, and asks whether myself and Sonny Jim might want to peruse the menu, which opens inside the paw. I scan the menu and I’m no Tom Doorley, but I’m impressed.
Slow-baked liver brownies, Frozzies — frozen vitamin-rich yoghurts — and a main dish menu broken down into Puppers, Doggos and Seniors.
Puppies can feast on chicken and rice with vegetables for £1.25, while older dogs have the choice of salmon or chicken with lamb and vegetables for £2, with turkey for the pensioners, all by Naturo pet foods.
Sonny, meanwhile, is oblivious. He’s trotting about the bar with a glint in his eye, his wet, twitching nose sniffing the air Hannibal Lecter style. He’s already had a taste of the liver brownie and is in a state of heady anticipation about when his next liver sliver or chicken is coming, all the while keeping Hannah and her cookie jar under close surveillance.
It’s photo-shoot time so rather than choose one main meal, Tim picks a rake of the 100% natural yummies for Sonny Jim to gorge on, even arriving down with some chicken from upstairs to ease him into his first modelling gig. It works a treat and Mark the photographer gushes about Sonny Jim’s top model talents.
I give the cheeky pup six months before he refuses to get out of bed for less than a crate of kitteninfused beer.
After my greedy guzzling faux pas — as someone who doesn’t eat meat, my stomach churns — I keep calm and carry on with my job.
Tim does too, politely pretending not to notice as I belch uncontrollably throughout our chat.
As I deep breathe and try to keep the chickeny beer down, news travels from the far side of the bar that Sonny Jim has done a big poo in the middle of the floor. The bar staff are racing to the scene but I stop them in their tracks, and scoop Sonny’s compliments to the chef into a doggie bag. Thank God the Poop Police are nowhere to be seen.
The surreality continues apace as Tim fills me in on the weekend’s shenanigans when, as well as music, doggie beer, treats, and a doggie caricature artist, there’ll be a mini-market with traders hawking everything from Pupcakes to bowties and waistcoats to hydrotherapy treatments and a firm giving cross country training tips.
Hairy stragglers can sit into the barber’s chair at ‘Short, Bark and Sides’, or might prefer ‘Hair Off The Dog’ while ‘It Makes Scents’ are showing their line in fragranced candles and home deodorisers.
Suddenly, Faro the black Labrador potters in and growls a greeting in Sonny Jim’s direction. Faro’s a total barfly. Barry O’Reilly tells me she’s only two but she’s been in and out of bars all her life.
She elegantly sits to heel, barely glancing at diners enjoying their meals, while Barry and his friend Eamon examine the menu like men out to impress.
Meanwhile, an uncouth, heavybellied Sonny Jim is sprawled out on the floor, doing his ‘poor me, I haven’t been fed in a month’ routine to any passers-by he manages to lock eyes with.
Faro eyes him up and down, as if to say: ‘Where was this cheeky pup dragged up?’
After her order for salmon, potato and vegetable goes in, I quiz Barry on where Faro got her delectable manners.
‘Oh Faro just loves the pub,’ explains Barry, a 33-year-old waiter. ‘I just came home from Edinburgh in July and it’s such a dog-friendly city — that’s where she was born.
‘She loves getting in and out of the bars and restaurants. Even when she was a puppy she’s been coming into bars — it’s brill being able to get her out again as she really missed it.
‘It’s so popular — for the socials there are queues around the corner.
‘In Ireland there’s a stigma as some dog owners aren’t socialising their dogs properly, seeing them as animals to be outside in gardens, but maybe we can start breaking that habit.’
Certainly, Tim had no idea when he decided to raise money for Lucy’s Trust Charity and throw the doors of his bar open to every dog in town he’d hit gold but he’s thrilled he took the idea by the scruff of the neck and ran with it.
Now not only Lucy’s but a host of other local pet businesses are also reaping the rewards.
‘It was definitely a gap in the market and we went for it,’ says Tim.
So how have his regulars taken to the idea?
‘We haven’t had one complaint,’ he says. ‘People ask how we can do it — people are confused in Northern Ireland about the laws around dogs.
‘They are allowed in pubs and restaurants, just not in food preparation areas.
‘Some establishments worry if they’re breaking the law but it’s absolutely okay and our customers love it.
‘If visitors don’t like dogs there’s plenty of space — it’s such a large bar they can sit away from dogs or go into the beer garden, and the restaurant is pet-free.’
I imagine the scenes that might await us next time we visit — secret members’ rooms where suited and booted hounds drink whiskey and play pool or cards, like that iconic painting by Cassius Mercellus Coolidge.
I’m not sure if Sonny Jim would ever pass their ‘gentledog’ R.O.A.R policy though, I think, as he splays out in the back seat of the car, fat with beer and biscuits and burping all the way home.
Hairy stragglers can get a short bark and sides