Pet boarding homes full as owners test positive
NOIDA: Many Covid-positive pet owners are reaching out to pet boarding services to watch over their dogs or cats till they — in home isolation or at hospitals — get better.
Pet boarding facilities — operational round the year and mostly run from homes — said their facilities are almost at capacity these days. Such facilities, with visiting veterinarians, charge around ₹400 to ₹800 a day to board a pet.
“The situation is very grim. We received way more calls this year than last. We have 13 dogs in our facility, all from Covid patients. The pet parents are relieved, knowing that their pets will be taken care of. The average duration an animal is with us this year has been about 20 days. In some cases, if the owners have financial crisis — like someone who lost his/her job — we have even offered free service,” said Amit Kaushal, who runs a facility in Greater Noida’s Omicron-2.
Shweta Vij, who runs Happy Pooches in Noida’s Sector 108 along with friend Shilpi Jain, said many owners ask them to collect pets from home to avoid exposure. “They tie the pets outside their flats. The first thing we do is sanitise the leash and then we take them from there. We have 12 pets at our home right now,” said Vij, who charges ₹650 per day for a pedigree breed and lower for the rest.
Rupshal Mukherjee runs a boarding house for cats in Greater Noida’s Gaur City-2. She said that many pet owners are scared that the infection may spread from the animals.
“Usually, when someone gives us a pet to look after, most of the enquiries are about the animal. However, we also get a number of calls from people who fear that they might get infected from their animals. Many people are also abandoning their pets because of this,” said Mukherjee.
The World Organization for Animal Health has said that several animal species have been infected with the coronavirus. Cats, it said, had a high susceptibility to infection and transmission between cats, but dogs had a low susceptibility and did not transmit the virus. But the Covid pandemic, it said, was driven by human-to-human transmission.
“Based on information available, risk of animals spreading Covid to people is considered to be low,” said the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to Dr Manilal Valliyate, a vet and CEO of Peta India, although Covid-19 had been detected in animals, they were not affected. “There were some news last year where some animals in zoos, especially the felines, were infected, and also a news of dogs carrying and spreading the virus, which was wrong,” said Dr Valliyate.
“Animals showing any clinical signs and having been in the company of a human patient must be taken to a vet for detailed examination and necessary diagnostic test,” she added.