Great britain

Great Britain
A Nation of Animal Lovers
“A British boy had a dog named Paddy. The dog died. His mother was worried about the child’s reaction to his death, as she knew he loved the dog.
The kid arrived home and asked: - Mom where's Paddy?
She said:
- Well, actually Paddy died…
- Oh that's too bad.
The boy went to his room. After two hours he came back downstairs and asked:
- Mom where's Paddy? She replied: - I told you son, Paddy is dead.
The kid went hysterical:
- Oh my God, Paddy is dead?! I thought you said daddy is dead! Adapted from a British popular joke

Myth or fact?
At the beginning of this course we were asked to define Britishness. As people often use stereotyped cultural conceptions to describe one others nation, we started defining it with a brainstorm of preconceived ideas that popped out in our minds. It was all about the British insularity, the royal family, the tea tradition, the punctuality, the double decked buses, the bird-watching, among many other suggestions of things that we would name as “typically British”. My hint was “the love of animals” and I decided to do a research based on this topic. Is Britain a nation of animal lovers? At what point?
I started my investigation using the huge network of online information. First I searched for data at a worldwide level using web browsers and keywords. Then, I looked for useful information contained in UK sites only. During the first stage of my research I realized how strong is this conception of the British having a sentimental attachment to animals was. People from all around the world have been posting questions related to this topic on forums and social networks. The most common one is: “Do British love animals more than they love people?”. This one is just for the record, as I will not discuss here about their sentimental values for humans vs. animals. What I will do is to expose facts that support the idea of the main topic.
On the second stage of my research I