Not every dog, just like not every person, should go to the pub.

Obstreperous drunks should stay home along with incessant barkers. Brawlers and biters, human or canine – no way!

Soon the dogs of Victoria could be formally allowed into pubs if (and this is a ferociously big if) the Carroll Labor government is returned at the forthcoming state election. While my blue-heeler-collie-cross Olive – who lives in Sydney but hails from inner-city Melbourne – would, if she could, vote for this amendment to the Food Act 1984, she is also well aware that not every bloke or bitch of her species understands pub etiquette.

There’s no place in her books for growlers and sniffers and frisky types that don’t understand “back off”. Or dogs that won’t get the message either.

Olive can go anywhere. In pubs and restaurants in Sydney’s inner west, where she lives, she will sit contentedly at our feet. She is not food driven. She is not interested in the schnitty and chips at the........

© The Guardian