‘If my dog can’t go, I’m not going’: Why pet-friendly housing matters
The day Robin Price spoke in parliament about no-fault evictions, he came home to find one on his own doorstep. When the council couldn’t promise a place for his Jack Russell, Tinks, he didn’t go to them at all. Now he’s backing Big Issue’s campaign to end the choice between a pet and a home
by:
19 Oct 2026
Robin & Tinks. Photo: Chocolate Films
Advertorial from Animal Friends Pet Insurance
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Robin Price asks Tinks to sit. She jumps up and licks his face instead. He asks again, and she rolls onto her back for a belly rub, which she gets. A 12-year-old Jack Russell with tan ears and lopsided markings that make her look as if she’s wearing a mask, Tinks knows exactly how far she can push it.
Not as far as it looks. Her full name is Tinkerbelle, but Robin isn’t keen on bellowing that in the street, so it’s saved for when he means business. She knows it, and when it matters, she comes to heel.
The rest of the time she barely leaves his side. Yet it wasn’t love at first sight. Nine years ago, Robin had just had to have another dog put down and had fallen into depression. His partner at the time brought Tinks home anyway.
“I remember one day I was crying in the bedroom, looking at a picture of the old dog, and Tinks wanted to jump on my lap,” he says.
“I pushed her away. But she was just so persistent that she ended up jumping on my lap anyway and giving me all the mighty kisses going. I just gave her a big cuddle, and that’s how me and her got together.”
Robin, who has sold Big Issue since 1997 and now pitches outside a Co-op in Pembrokeshire, still lives with depression. Tinks helps. “It gives me a purpose to wake up in the morning,” he says.
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“Nobody else is going to walk my dog, nobody else is going to feed her. It’s my responsibility – my only responsibility in this world – to make sure that she’s safe, loved, warm, fed and watered.”
In 2020 that was tested. Robin’s mum died, and on the day of her funeral his relationship ended. For a long stretch afterwards he would finish selling by one o’clock, collect Tinks and head for the station, riding trains until midnight rather than face going home to the flat.
“It didn’t matter where we went, I just wanted to get out of town,” he says.
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He got home that night to find a Section 21 notice on his own door.
“Which I thought was very, very ironic,” he says.
His building had been sold, and he had 56 days to leave. The council told him they couldn’t act until he’d actually been evicted – and that they might not be able to do anything for Tinks.
“I said, ‘Well, I won’t be coming to you then, will I? If my dog can’t go, then I’m not going.’”
Robin spent years homeless before Tinks came into his life, but she never has been.
Photo: Chocolate Films.
“Tinks is not a homeless dog,” he says. “She’s used to her creature comforts – sitting on the sofa watching The Simpsons, having her dinner dead on six o’clock.” Friends offered to take her in.
“It’s not the same. I want my dog with me.”
In the end he found a private landlord who accepted Tinks for an extra tenner on the deposit.
Plenty of people aren’t so lucky. Fewer than one in 10 hostels in the UK allow pets, and most pet owners facing homelessness would rather sleep rough than give up their animal.
The law has moved on since then, partly thanks to campaigners like Robin. The Renters’ Rights Act, which became law in October 2025 and came into force on 1 May this year, abolished Section 21 in England. It also gave private renters the right to ask to keep a pet, a request landlords can no longer unreasonably refuse.
But those protections stop at the private rented sector. Someone who turns to their council for emergency help can still be told their pet isn’t welcome.
Big Issue’s Your Pet or Your Home campaign wants to close that gap, calling on the government to bring temporary and emergency accommodation into line with private renting and make it pet-friendly by default, with clear agreements in place, so no one has to choose between a safe bed and the animal that keeps them going.
Animal Friends Pet Insurance, which welcomed the Act’s new protections for renters with pets, is backing the extension wholeheartedly. Animal welfare has been central to the company since it was founded in 1998. It supports StreetVet’s free veterinary care for the pets of people experiencing homelessness, and sponsors the red tabards worn by vendors’ dogs – Tinks’s included.
Ben Pryce, Chief Operating Officer at Animal Friends says, “We openly welcomed the momentum created by the recent wider changes introduced through the Renters’ Rights Bill. But there is still urgent work to do in the public sector to ensure people experiencing homelessness are not forced to choose between safe accommodation and staying with their pets.
“We stand with Big Issue, calling on the government to bring temporary and emergency accommodation into line with private renting and make it pet-friendly by default. Far too many people in temporary accommodation face unnecessary barriers because of pet restrictions, despite the vital role companion animals play in emotional wellbeing, stability and recovery.
“At Animal Friends Pet Insurance, we believe governmental policy must reflect the reality of people’s lives and support more compassionate, inclusive housing solutions that help keep people and their pets together.”
