Why planning limits its concern: a case study of planning for dogs in Melbourne, Australia

As urban planners focus on creating more sustainable cities, there is an increasing need to plan for other species. Found in around 40% of Australian households, dogs have a growing, legitimate presence in urban culture and society. Dogs however remain a neglected subject of urban planning scholarship and practice. This paper critically examines why urban planners exclude dogs as subjects of their plans through the voices of practising strategic planners in the urban context of Melbourne, Australia. This paper characterises planning as being governed by two dimensions - the ontological and epistemological - and finds that the actions of planners in excluding dogs from consideration concerns the functioning of their ontologies of gatekeeper and practitioner as they negotiate and reshape the frontier of planning and its field of concern. The importance of anthropocentrism in governing how planners exclude dogs from planning in practice is shown to be profound.