During the few hot days we had in June, I came across my first tub of dog ice-cream nestled among the Häagen-Dazs in my local supermarket. Scoop’s vanilla: ‘Tubs that get tails wagging.’ My first thought was that it was a joke, or perhaps for people who identify as dogs. So I looked it up as I stood in the queue, and it was as if a door opened onto our national psychosis. Purina ‘Frosty paws’, Wiggles and Wags ‘Freeze-Fetti’, Frozzys dog ice-cream, Pooch Creamery Vanilla, Wagg’s Sunny Daze blueberry, Higgins dog ice-cream, Dogsters ice-cream-style treats, Jude’s, Smoofl, Ben and Jerry’s… the market for dog ice-cream is limitless and it crosses the socio-economic spectrum.

For the ethical rich, there’s Cool Dog Vegan, retailing at an astonishing £120 for a five-litre tub. What’s a one-off £120 when you pay £4.20 every morning for an oat cortado? Mid-market there’s Billy and Margot’s selection of iced treats: blackberry and apple, coconut cream.

Aldi makes its own dog ice-cream, which it launched last summer with a fleet of ‘dog-livery’ ice-cream vans which loitered in parks around the country. The PR photos show happy, patient dogs forming an orderly queue beside them. Aldi’s bestseller is ‘pea and vanilla’. Aldi thinks the pea is the sort of earthy, grounding ingredient that makes this a sensible doggy choice.

What’s wrong with us? What are people thinking? It’s not the expense so much as the whole idea. Dogs shouldn’t even have ice-cream. ‘Dogs are lactose-intolerant, so we’ve made our dog-friendly ice-cream with reduced-lactose milk,’ boasts Scoop’s. If you have to give dogs ice-cream, I suppose it’s best it doesn’t give them diarrhoea. But why give it at all?

A company called Woof and Brew that models itself on the hipster brewery Brewdog have had a smash hit this summer with their ‘Pawsecco’ freeze pops, ‘Iced treats for those on four feet made with pet house white.’ The listed ingredients are elderflower, linden blossom and ginseng. ‘Is your dog a licker or a cruncher?’ I bet the Woof and Brew comms team were chuffed with that. £5.99. Sold out.

Who’s buying, and why? Who’s sharing the joke? Do you chuckle to yourself as you pour yourself a glass of fizz, say ‘Cheers’ as you chuck a Pawsecco to the pup. Is that it? Or is the product in fact the pun, dogs just waste disposal?

I’m proud of how unreasonably, eccentrically devoted we English are to our dogs. Several members of my own family much prefer dogs to children – and, growing up, I saw their point. I like that wherever you go in the world there’s some half-cracked English ex-pat running a shelter for local strays. Dogs are in our English bones. So how come we have forgotten what they enjoy?

Most dogs eat literally anything. ‘My puppy wolfed it down!’ says a review on the Frozzys website. Your puppy wolfs down horse droppings. A few weeks ago I brought back two tubs of Jude’s dog ice-cream for Hippo, a sweet-natured and beautiful dark brindle Staffie who visits the office from time to time. Hippo ate the contents of both tubs, followed by their cardboard containers and a tennis ball.

If dog ice-cream indicates a crack in our collective mind, the reviews confirm it. ‘My Frenchie loved Scoop’s! Perfect for keeping fur babies hydrated on a hot day.’

‘These fruity tubs are so appealing to our girls. Lovely ingredients, full of flavour (yes, I taste-tested!) And an unbelievable bargain at two for £6.’ ‘These treats let my fur babies know they’re special.’

I feel like an alien in my own country.

I’m afraid the craziness doesn’t end in the frozen foods section. On 1 April, the Bottled Baking Company, which sells dry cake ingredients in attractive bottles, advertised a ‘paw-licking’ carrot cake bottle bake to make with your dog. It was an April Fool’s joke. What does a dog care for the shared experience of baking? But to the company’s amazement the orders came in thick and fast. ‘Made this cake for my gorgeous girl for her second birthday. She loved it. Took it to her day care to share with her friends.’

There’s been quite a bit written about the excessive coddling of dogs, and the consensus is that they have become like children for a generation that claims to be too broke and too climate-conscious to reproduce. I almost buy it. The most popular dog breeds are eerily neotenic, or childlike; pugs, Boston terriers and French bulldogs, with wide-apart bulging eyes, flat faces and smiling mouths. There’s a café in Hoxton called Cuppapug, where you can sit in a pink soft-play ball-pit in a pink room and play with pugs. Some of the pugs wear big pink pants. I took my son for fun, but I don’t think I’ve experience such genuine existential sadness since my early twenties. This isn’t treating dogs with the indulgent care we lavish on kids, it’s using them as props. If you really wanted to indulge your actual dog and give it a cooling treat on a hot day, you’d mash up a cold rat.

It’s National Dog Day on 26 August, did you know, and in advance of the big day the insane dog indulgence industry is cranking up. A restaurant called Los Mochis in Notting Hill is offering ‘a decadent three-course Doggy Menu to celebrate the 26th. The paw-sitively divine menu features Pumpkin Dog Biscuits, followed by Chicken Liver Tacos, before finishing with a Pupcake.’

‘To ensure your furry friend’s meal is as lavish as can be, Los Mochis has partnered with Dogviar, the luxury dog caviar.’ The Telegraph’s restaurant critic reviewed dogviar last summer. Just £50 for one small tin of caviar oil and caviar protein. It tastes like Scampi Fries, he said, and would be terrific paired with a single malt.