In the first few weeks of what may become, for some of us, months of staying at home, sheltering in place, people with pets in the family were fairly certain that their dogs were happy to have them around more. The verdict’s still out on many cats, though—especially those felines who seem somewhat put off by the invasion of humans in their otherwise calm and quiet daytime households.
I asked pet owners how their families’ animals are helping them get through the stay-at home.
Amy Suggars (Ohio) I live alone and am the sole proprietor of my own business. I spend a lot of time by myself under normal circumstances and I have worked to develop regular social interactions in my life. Not only has the pandemic reduced my work hours (as a pet-sitter/dog-walker) to almost nothing, it has also eliminated my ability to socialize. My dog KD, a three-year-old flat-coated retriever, has been an excellent companion. She has a very happy, playful demeanor and her antics keep me smiling during this difficult time. Petting her helps to reduce my anxiety whenever I think about my loss of income and the future of my business. Finally, she gives me a reason to leave the house to take her for walks in the woods and to take her to different places to practice our obedience training. I’m very lucky to have her!
Katt Patt (Washington) I feel blessed with ferrets. I am teleworking four days a week with longer hours because of connectivity issues. (One day at the office—weird to see downtown empty.) Ferrets come and dance around me while I am at my desk. They are perpetually young. Even my older ones bounce and laugh. They come and try and steal my computer mouse if I leave it unattended. When I read the latest FEMA reports, I often am holding or playing with a ferret. They help with the sadness of the updates.
Kristi Hanson (Louisiana) I normally have something to do away from home almost every day, so the cats and my little papillon are used to me going in and out. This has been a new experience for them, but as far as I can tell, they aren’t doing any jumps for joy. I have caught the cats giving me the “oh, it’s you again” look. Gigi is a little more clingy, but not much. For me, however, they have been really entertaining. I have noticed some dog and cat behaviors I hadn’t seen before, so it’s a learning experience, too. They still love to snuggle at night!
Kathy Smith (South Carolina) Indy and I moved during the pandemic, so there’s a lot of adjusting for the two of us. He thought our new location didn’t have other people anywhere. Now that more are venturing out, the dog is genuinely shocked. Today, he was overwhelmed with the number of people out. I had to agree with him, so we went home immediately from our walk. He’s my social distancing monitor, LOL! Indy is ten, a border collie/golden retriever/samoyed mix and I’m his whole family (other than trips to see Gramma, who is 87). I am a Realtor.
George Guba (New York) To preface: I started a new job eleven days before the shutdown began in New York. I moved back to New York the day before I started my new job. I work as an Instructional Designer with faculty to help them teach online. At the start of this, we went from 1,400 students learning online to 6,500 students and dozens of faculty, most without online teaching experience. I currently have six dogs. Two are staying with me, two are with a friend back in Virginia, and two are in a kennel (a friend had been watching them, but due to their own circumstances could not foster past the last two months). Whippets are very resilient, and mine range from seven months old to 12 1/2 years old. I was temporarily going to stay with my 86-year-old mom in her retirement village until I found and bought a house. I had hoped to find and close on a house before the end of April. Then real estate shut down.
Without a fenced yard, the two of my dogs who are with me and I have been walking two to three or more miles a day. I’m “non-essential essential.” I spend more time working at home than I worked in the office. I get to spend more time with the dogs than when I was in the office for eight or nine hours on top of the 100-mile daily commute. We walk in the morning, after lunch, in the evening, and before bed. That’s helped me get more fit and moving, since we can’t go to the park or dog events, or visit friends. Staying with my mom helps mentally, but so do the dogs.
Photo by George Guba, who adds: “Sonja practicing distancing. No cave bed at my mom’s so she made her own with a comforter and pillows.”
April Shoe (Alabama) I am a dog trainer/facility manager for a training facility in Birmingham. I have an eight-year-old Pomeranian, a ten-year-old mixed-breed dog, and a 15-week-old golden retriever puppy. I am also a Licensed Family Paws Parent Educator, so I get my four-year-old twins involved in dog training and relationship-bonding exercises. My 13-year-old son does a lot of training exercises for foundation skills with the dogs as well. We train. A lot. I work on loose-leash walking in the neighborhood and foundations with my puppy, and the older two have been working on fun tricks to get us through. We also just lie around on the couch together and cuddle, so that always helps.
Susan Ewing (New York) My youngest dog, at two years old, still wakes me up each morning around 7 a.m., whining. I think without the dogs, I might sleep way more. (I’m already getting plenty of sleep.) Also, to keep us moving, we’re walking the dogs twice day. I think the fresh air and exercise is good for us and for the dogs. As a side benefit, the sidewalks are wearing down the dogs’ nails so I don’t have to worry about trimming them.
Maria Burton (Washington) Hubby and I are both essential and working more than ever right now. Vet clinic/shelter (me), truck driver (him). People are scared, worried, and sometimes grumpy and mean during this hard time. It’s just really nice to come home to a house full of loving animals who have no idea what’s going on in the world and just want cuddles. There are seven dogs in my house right now, both mine and fosters. A chihuahua, a shepherd, and five heelers! Three kitties—one is a foster kitten almost ready to go be adopted. And my bunny! Who I will admit is more excited about the dandelions that are blooming than cuddles with me at the end of the day.
Glenda Lee (Massachusetts) Dixie will be six years old next month. She is a great Pyr. Dixie came to us at 16 months and has been awesome from the word go. She was in rescue in North Carolina for nine months, having been dumped, abandoned, or whatever at seven months. Why, I don’t know, other than Pyrs are not a dog for a novice. And they absolutely don’t respond to harsh training methods. Added to that, Dixie has very limited hearing, so that could have been perceived to be stubbornness.
Daisy came to us at eight and a half weeks back in January. She was supposedly the product of an oops litter, but I have my doubts since this was momma’s first heat and neither parent looked to be a year old. Dixie is a mix of Lab, Pyr, and pittie. Her daddy looked more pit bull, while momma looked more Lab. Both were sweet. Daddy spent most of our visit in my lap. Daisy has been more of a challenge. I haven’t had a pup in more than 20 years. I’m 20-plus years older now and, after she came home, the hand surgeon scheduled hubby for a skin cancer removal nine days into a new pup! Because this required a skin graft the size of a half dollar, his dominant hand had to be above his heart at all times for the next ten days. To say that I was stretched a little thin is the understatement of the century! And once that was over, we were both sick for three weeks. While we were still quarantined after covid testing, the lockdown started. So, yes, it’s been challenging.
The girls are awesome. They give the hubs a reason to get dressed and out the door for their walks. And since he retired, getting him to do much of anything has been a chore. They snuggle, which brings peace and sanity, and they keep us busy and active. Too easy to get into a funk in solitary confinement!
Alisha Ardiana (California) I am a dog trainer who decided in November that I needed a dog. We had four criteria—will play with my wife, train with me, coexist with our cat, and be able to thrive in San Francisco. We decided on a papillon. On December 31, a breeder contacted me that she had an adolescent female that was a former show dog that needed an active home. We flew to Portland on Valentine’s Day and picked her up in Washington State the next day. We flew home February 16. Shelter-in-place (SIP) started March 16. We have both been home 24/7 since SIP. My wife has three restaurants, and she closed them all.
If you have to SIP, do it with a papillon. She keeps me busy. She naps with me. It’s been difficult integrating her with the cat—more work than I expected. But it’s giving me goals and helped me come up with videos to share with clients. Ironically, the other part that was difficult was getting her to feel safe walking in my neighborhood. Thanks to social distancing, that has been seamless.
This time has also enabled me to really bond with my dog and with my wife. And in many ways, I am grateful that this happened. It’s also enabled me to do awesome Zoom consultations because, when people ask how to do something, I can at least demonstrate with my dog. Since I am a relatively new dog owner, I am able to give them clear step-by-step instructions of how I developed all the behaviors, And I can pull all my toys, crates, and gates out to give them a virtual show.
Timothy Page (Oregon) Chiquis is 12; she’s a chihuahua and is the Queen of the household. She doesn’t put up with anything from the others, but she’s quite the cuddler. She loves to chase cats, squirrels, and crows. All the dogs have beds in our bedroom, but she sleeps on the back of the couch facing out the front window like a guard dog. Then there’s Lalo, another chihuahua. He came to us afraid of everything and everyone. He needs the Thundercoat sometimes. I call him the Spectator. He doesn’t chase other animals, but on walks, he will let Chiquis know there’s something to chase ahead. This nine-year-old is very picky and sometimes will go a day or two without eating his dinner. He has long legs, and everyone adores his cute looks, but Coco is nudging that out. (Coco protects us from any animals that might jump out of the television.) Coco will be two in June. Wisdom Panel says he is a chihuahua/Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka mix. Is that a mouthful? All three dogs are involved in flyball, but none of the trainers, vets, or vet techs have ever heard of an RTB. He is 15 pounds of flash across the field. The shelter said chihuahua/sight hound; he has a lot of sight hound features from long legs, the muzzle, the gait, and the tail. Did I mention energy level? To quote a man in the park, “That dog is *expletive* fast!”
During the stay-at-home, I’m getting more exercise. I am a substitute teacher, so I don’t have a class of students to teach online. The district is still paying me, though; not all districts are doing so. I am also a Spanish health care interpreter. I work in person only. I prefer not to do interpreting over the phone, and I haven’t had the video training. I could have accepted assignments early on during the pandemic, but at my age, that might have put me in jeopardy. Assignments quickly dwindled anyway. Since I’m home more, I get out more with the dogs. That’s more exercise for this ancient dude.
Caro Janmaat (Netherlands) The Netherlands kind of avoided an absolute lockdown and used the soft approach. Politicians called it the intelligent lockdown. We had some freedom but we were required to self-isolate as much as possible. I live with a reactive Frenchie, four years old. I work long hours and I used doggy daycare to provide his care two days a week and he was staying three days a week with my mom and dad. My mom has dementia and my dad is a heart patient, so I did not want them out meeting people (including me) or pedaling a potential covid-carrying Frenchie back and forth to their house. Tinus, the Frenchie, pretends to be a service dog to my demented mother. He gives her a sense of time as she feeds him three times a day and a gives him a snack at coffee time. She keeps his face and ears clean, brushes his fur, and attends to all his wishes. So I let them choose: Tinus would be their house companion for several weeks to minimize contact and I only had to bring the groceries to their front door, or they would not see Tinus for the duration. They chose to care for Tinus. Every day, I got updates and pictures from my mom. They had a blast. When it calmed down a bit, I started to take Tinus home for the weekends. Once I brought him back and my dad thanked me for taking care of him (the dog)—I thought that was hilarious because it is my dog, after all, and I should be thanking them. Tinus loved his stay. So did my mom. Now more restrictions are lifted and we are going back to a more normal routine. Mom missed Tinus more than she missed us visiting. I am so happy that Tinus “took care of my mom for me.”
How have your pets helped you and your family get through the stay-at-home?
