Four Paws and a Pint Pot: The Dogs Who've Made The Leopard Their Local

There is a bowl just inside the door of The Leopard, and it is filled before the pumps are pulled most mornings. Fresh water, a wipe of the rim, set down on the flagstones where the draught doesn't reach. It is, if you think about it, the first act of hospitality the building performs each day — and it isn't aimed at the humans.

Dogs have been drinking in Burslem pubs for as long as there have been Burslem pubs. What's changed is the paperwork. Where a landlord once simply nodded at a lurcher and got on with pulling a pint, there are now signs, stickers, bowls, jars of treats and a small industry of advice about it. None of that is the point. The point is the pause at the threshold, which every dog performs and every owner learns to read.

The Bowl by the Door

Watch a dog come into a pub for the first time. It stops dead in the doorway, nose working, and takes the room in before a paw crosses the mat. Within a minute it knows where the fire is, which corner has been claimed, whether the kitchen is busy, and whether the bloke at the end of the bar is a soft touch. Regulars don't hesitate at all. They walk through like they own the freehold and find their spot without being told.

We've a hook on the wall by the door for leads, a jar behind the bar for treats, and a towel that lives under the till. That's the whole of the equipment, really. Everything else is done by the dogs.

House Rules, Written by the Dogs

Nobody has ever pinned these to a wall, but they're enforced all the same.

• Lead on until you're both settled. A dog on a lead is a dog under control; a dog loose in a busy room is a conversation nobody wants to have.
• Ask before you feed someone else's dog. Even the scratchings. Especially the scratchings.
• Water first, fuss second. The bowl gets changed through the evening, not just at opening.
• The bar top is for elbows, glasses and the odd folded paper. Not noses. Never noses.
• On matchdays, keep the gangway clear. A crowd coming through at ten to three is no place for a dog who likes to lie exactly where people walk.
• Know when your dog has had enough. A dog that's turned away from the room, or gone flat behind a chair, wants to be left alone. That's your cue to finish up and walk home.
• Wet dog is a state, not a crime. November in the Potteries will see to that without any help.

Three Regulars Worth Knowing

Bess is a brindle staffie of uncertain age — seven, maybe eight, depending on who you ask and how much they've had. She attends the Tuesday quiz, installs herself under the table nearest the fire, and has never once contributed a correct answer. She is, however, extremely interested in the picture round.

Alfie is an elderly Jack Russell who comes in on a Saturday, around half past two, with the couple who've been drinking here since the nineties. He has a saucer of water, sits on a folded coat, stays twenty minutes and goes home. If Alfie hasn't been in by three, you'd worry — and his owners know it, which is why they ring ahead when he's had a poorly week.

Moss is a lurcher built out of elbows and legs, who arrives at speed, sleeps through the football commentary with his chin on a boot, and is terrified of the hand dryer in the gents. Once Moss has lain down, he does not move. The bar staff have long since learned to step round him the way you'd step round a rug with opinions.

What a Dog-Friendly Boozer Actually Needs

It doesn't need a chalkboard announcing the fact. It needs a stone floor and a mop, a bowl that's changed mid-evening, staff who know the dogs' names before they know the owners', and a bit of honesty.

Because dog-friendly isn't the same as anything-goes. It's a negotiation between a dog, an owner and the poor soul at the bar who'd rather not have a wet nose in his pie — and the negotiation only holds if everyone does their bit. Handled properly, a pub with dogs in it is calmer, not noisier. Hounds set a tempo. They give people something to talk about that isn't the weather or the state of the roads, and they give the room a bit of warmth that no amount of soft furnishing can buy.

There's a practical side, too. A dog is company, and company is what a pub sells. We've had grown men come in on a Tuesday for a quiet pint and end up crouched on the floor making a fuss of a terrier, and the pint has done twice the good it would have done otherwise.

The Walk Home

Half past ten, coats on, lead clipped, a last slurp from the bowl that's been there since opening. The dog knows the route. Turns left at the corner without being asked, drags a bit at the chip shop, trots the rest. You walk home behind it feeling like the evening did what it was supposed to.

The bowl will be filled again in the morning. It always is.