A dog’s-eye view of Paris
Parisian dogs have hunted criminals, been eaten as a delicacy with peas, and filled the streets with poo. Chris Pearson, who has been researching the history of dogs in cities, traces their impact on the French capital over the past 200 years
Chris Pearson describes the history of the city’s canines, who have served in its police force and fed its inhabitants
Dog bites alarmed many Parisians, as fears of rabies stalked the 19th-century city. Rabies anxieties led some doctors, vets and other commentators to call for the eradication of dogs from French cities. Among them was army offifificer Alexandre Roger, writing in 1813, who lamented how rabies could strike anyone, rich or poor.
To minimise the risk of rabid dog bites, the police prescribed the muzzling of dogs in public places and targeted unmuzzled dogs for destruction. But the muzzling orders were often ignored and poorly enforced, while some doctors and vets labelled them dangerous because ‘spontaneous rabies’ was more likely to develop in restrained and repressed dogs. Animal protectionists, for their part, portrayed muzzles as cruel and ineffectual.
The French chemist Louis Pasteur’s development of a rabies treatment in the mid-1880s did not eradicate fears of dog bites: the press reaction to Paris’s newly minted police dog unit in the early 20th century dwelled on the possibility that police dogs might bite innocent Parisians, even if the dogs spent much of their time muzzled. More recent fears over dangerous dogs suggest that dog bites remain a source of concern and controversy.