ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the problem of stray and uncontrolled dogs in the nineteenth-century British city, the expression and icon of an undisciplined public sphere, and thus the targets of intervention, discipline and control. It argues that a dog-walking city had appeared, the result of a certain compact or dispensation between humans, but also between humans and dogs, and the modern society they have both helped to create. The RSPCA's initial public preference for policing cruelty in the streets rather than interfering with the privacy of the home was another marker of this moral geography of concern. The muzzling policies that were the cornerstone of the state's fight against rabies for a generation were always deeply controversial. Pemberton and Michael Worboys have similarly noted that many defenders of the muzzle felt that it acted as a badge, indicating a well-cared-for dog and responsible owner, allowing the police to concentrate on the unmuzzled strays of thoughtless owners'.
