OPINION - Is a dog a replacement for a child? You'd have to be mad to think so — but that isn't stopping some

You’ll have seen them, of course: the buggies which you look at benignly as you pass because they’ve got babies in, only it turns out that no they don’t: there’s a dog looking back at you instead.

There are lots of them around these days. I sat next to one on the bus the other day, and it came as quite a shock. No infant in the buggy, but a perfectly decent little dog with a bow in its hair.