OUTRAGE: Dogs No Longer Allowed on the Set of Downton Abbey

There are more hard times ahead for Downton Abbey. After withstanding a world war, near financial ruin and several devastating deaths, the fictional estate has now been dealt another blow, only this is one it might never recover from. Lady Carnavon, owner of the real-life Downton Abbey (actually called Highclere Castle) where the show shoots, has — after one actor’s dog caused a destructive ruckus on set — banned all cast members’ dogs from the property.

What horror! Cousin Matthew could die a hundred deaths and it would never compare to the pain we collectively experience upon realizing that Elizabeth McGovern can no longer bring her Irish setters to work with her. (I don’t know if Elizabeth McGovern has Irish setters, but in my defense it really seems like she would.) This is as bad as that time Thomas locked one of Lord Grantham’s Labrador in that shack in the woods, only not really because most Downton actors probably make enough money to leave their pets at home and hire dog walkers.

But what this means for Downton’s resident dogs Pharaoh and Isis? I have no idea, but my best guess? They get a spinoff where both dogs move to Paris and end up get really into modernism. (Pharaoh has an affair with Hemingway.)

Lady Carnarvon banishes dogs from Downton Abbey: Owner of Highclere calls time on stars’ pets ‘running riot around the castle’ [Daily Mail]