Both the French and Brits love their dogs. Go see this Agence France-Presse article which maintains that a pet dog has twice the carbon footprint of a 4x4 SUV. The original research comes from New Zealand, and was replicated in Britain.
Try comparing the utility of a dog and an SUV, apples and oranges. Dogs provide company to lonely people, SUVs provide safe transportation. Both are important, but in completely different ways and perhaps to different groups of people. I love it!
