Working dogs.

Abstract

Abstract This chapter looks at working dogs that exist within the leisure environment. One of the foci of this chapter is examining how the presence of working dogs in an environment has been utilized to construct idealized images of leisure and tourism landscapes. This discussion covers both contemporary uses of representations of working dogs in landscapes to promote places as tourist or leisure environments, and how such use has evolved over time, and how the representation and positioning of the working dog may have altered. Another focus of this chapter is a discussion of the extent to which dogs are employed as workers in the tourism and leisure industry and the history of this use. This chapter also encompasses a discussion of the changing role of working dogs in the face of the changing nature of experiences sought by tourists and leisured people. The discussions within this chapter are grounded in the issue of animal rights and highlight changing patterns in the use of working dogs in leisure and tourism experiences in line with altering social moral values, focusing on the construction of dogs as tools or objects to be used and/or owned by humans in the leisure and tourism environment.