Is your pet about to get sepawration ANXIETY?
Lockdown has seen family pets getting more attention than they’ve ever dreamed of. But as millions of us go on holiday before the big return to work and school, JUSTIN WEBB asks...
THIS is the dog that wasn’t going to be allowed to sleep upstairs. This is the dog that wasn’t going to get on furniture. The dog that would be trained, obedient, quiet. His name would be Toffee and he would be sweet.
It said as much in the lengthy notes, written in coloured pen, that my youngest daughter Clara wrote as part of her campaign for us to get him. She was going to be in charge of him. He would cause no trouble. He would fit in.
Then came the coronavirus lockdown. If you have a dog you will already know what happened next. The dogs have had their day, their month, their year.
They are in heaven. People talk about the cruelty of owning a dog when you have no time to walk it, and that’s true I suppose. But the biggest thing a dog wants is not walks: it’s you. Ever since they noticed — somewhere back in the mists of time — that the friendlier they were to humans the closer they got to the campfire that the humans had kindled, they have known what their aim is.
We kindle no campfires in South London. But, when lockdown began, our dog, like dogs across the western world, noticed immediately that something was up. And it was (for them) very good.
For Toffee it began when I stopped going in to the studio to present the Today Programme on Radio 4. He joins me in the early morning preparing at my study desk and watches intently as I set up the ‘ atomic clock’ that tells the precise time so that I can present without crashing into the pips at the top of the hour. Does he listen intently?
No. He sleeps through the whole thing. I told our sports presenter Rob Bonnet that he might wake up during his segment if it wasn’t boring football, but I am not even sure that’s true.
Because all he wants is to be with me. Except that when my wife gets up and starts her office life from a room nearby, well … All Toffee wants is to be with her. And then again when my daughters Clara, 16, and Martha, 20, get up (one was at school and one at university and both have been here throughout the lockdown)… well, Toffee decides he might want to be with them.
WHEN my son Sam, who’s been sheltering with his grandparents to look after them, visits the garden, Toffee will be outside for the duration. In fact the separation of households is even jollier for him: he can shuttle between distant humans and get more attention. Indeed, the only downside about the pandemic for our four-legged friends is that we occasionally have to wear face masks — dogs don’t like not being able to read their owners’ facial expressions, according to the experts.
What is going on? Well, we know of course. But they do not. And here is where the dog psychologists and the dog trainers are worried. The American trainer William Berloni — who coaches animals for roles in stage plays and films — has told the business website Bloomberg that things might go very wrong when lockdown ends.
‘They assume it’s a new lifestyle,’ Berloni says. ‘ They’re thinking, “Finally our owners know that we want to be with them 24/ 7”.’ Bloomberg informs us: ‘Dogs are becoming “overly bonded”, which means they’re intensely reliant on our presence to stay calm.’
Meanwhile Jenna Kiddie, head of canine behaviour at the Dogs Trust, Britain’s largest dog welfare charity, says: ‘ We are concerned that a generation of young dogs are going to come out with separation anxiety’. A puppy daycare centre in Manhattan goes even further. It reports that puppies dropped off for the day are exhibiting worrying signs of hysteria: ‘Rather than being a little bit stressed’ — as in normal times — ‘ they’re really, really concerned — vocalisation, excessive panting, and an overall worried demeanour.’
The solution, we are told, is to try to re- establish normality, including periods when your dog is not with you. Even if you are in another room nearby.
William Berloni, the trainer, has more radical advice: ‘At least twice a day for an hour, put her in a room (or a crate in a room) and close the door.’
‘They’ll protest, they’ll scream, and you just have to let them cry it out,’ he says.
When you go back into the room with them you have to pretend nothing is amiss.
Now there are several quite obvious problems with this in my household and perhaps in yours. Who has a house so large that you can simply ignore a howling dog or carry on with Zoom calls for work? Endlessly having to say ‘No, Toffee’s not being tortured, we are just trying a new separation technique’, is not going to endear you to colleagues.
There are two answers it seems to me. The first is that in many households the return to work will be gradual. Many offices are not intending to open fully this side of Christmas. Maybe one person in a couple will leave for longer. This is not going to be a sudden thing. And (to be deadly serious for a moment) there are plenty of people who are nervous about leaving home or have no job to return to.
The longer term answer is that we need to be as faithful to them as they are to us. Dogs are loved because they are so constant, so wholly loving, in the face of everything the world throws at us.
That is why — if you are lucky enough to have one — they have been such a boon during these awful days. They soothe family rows. They reduce your blood pressure. They ease tension.
So we ought to be just as constant. Are we really going to lock them in a cage in another room? Of course not. We still need them as much as they need us.
And they will come good again when we are vaccinated (I am being optimistic here but not unrealistic) and we all go back to something approaching normal. Dogs will adapt much better than those hyper- sensitive New Yorkers suggest. They are only as neurotic as we let them be. One walk a day again? Hey ho. Kids gone back to school. Whatever? Adults out for longer in the day?
I suspect the dogs of Britain, mentally stronger than the average Manhattan pooch, will take it all in their stride. There may be some better welcomes home but we in turn will be even more pleased to see them.
BUT in the meantime let us focus on doing our bit for our best friends who have been here for us throughout the lockdown and will always be with us while humans and animals coexist on earth.
We do not need to give them odd- ball psychotherapy as if they were extras in a Woody Allen film. We just need to treat them kindly. We shall come out of this nightmare with a debt owed to dogs.
It can be repaid with a bone, a pat and a walk in the park. And perhaps they can sleep upstairs?