Your dog is not ready for you to return to office
NEW YORK — Look at that face, those pleading eyes, that nose that kept you company all through the pandemic. Now explain to Cooper why it is so, so important that you return to the office — leaving her alone all day, after two years of 24/7 togetherness. Because … what? Company d’esprit? Todd McCormick, a derivatives trader on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, decided that he is not going to do it. “I don’t believe I will ever go back to an office,” he said. As he spoke, his 13-yearold rescue mix, Higgins, demanded a cracker.
Many New Yorkers, of course, have long since returned to their workplaces, or never stopped going to them. But for those contemplating the transition now, and for their dogs, a day of reckoning has arrived.
More than 23 million American households added a cat or dog during the pandemic, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and many of those animals have never known what it is like to be left alone all day. They photobombed Zoom meetings, typed cryptic messages on their humans’ laptops and found other ways to contribute to the interspecies work environment. For many people, the dogs were the only warm body around — therapist, companion and entertainment system rolled into one.
Now their employers want them to give that up.
Fat chance, McCormick said, not even pretending to delay Higgins’ cracker gratification.
“If I go to take out recycling or the garbage, or go get my mail, he will howl like a Costa Rican monkey, and it will sound like there’s a murder going on in my house,” he said, describing behavior that arose only since the start of the pandemic. “He knows I’m just going to be gone for three minutes, but it doesn’t stop me from being able to hear him all the way down in the elevator.”
McCormick has mostly stopped going to restaurants, and has not gone on vacation since the start of the pandemic, largely to avoid separation from his dog.
“But I’ve got to tell you, through it all, what an unbelievable companion,” he said.
Dogs in city apartments have always had to adjust to less-than-ideal conditions, but the return to work has meant that suddenly thousands are going through the same transition at the same time, said Kate Senisi, director of training at School for the Dogs in Manhattan’s East Village. “We’ve had a lot of separation cases coming through,” she said.
Dogs who were used to being left alone before the pandemic tend to adjust relatively quickly, she said. “But for the pandemic puppies” — dogs born and adopted during the pandemic — “they haven’t been left at all, and now they’re at a sensitive age, adolescence,” she said. “It can be pretty difficult. They have to be taught these new skills.”
Pro tip from the trainer: Don’t give your dog that special toy only when you leave, because the toy will become a trigger for distress.
Pam Reid, vice president of the ASPCA’s behavioral sciences team, notes that dogs who are suddenly left alone may feel “confused, lonely and wondering why everyone is rushing out the door instead of spending time at home.” She suggests short practice separations before the big return to workplace, and scheduling walks and meals to accommodate the future work schedule.
“Be sure to look out for signs of anxiety as you prepare to depart, such as nervous pacing and panting, vocalizing or trying to leave with you,” she said.
Such signs are all too familiar to Millet Israeli, a psychotherapist who lives in Chelsea. Since the pandemic, these distressing behaviors have become part of the daily routine with Milton and Rufus, both mixes of poodle and Cavalier King Charles spaniel, known to their faithful as cavapoos.
If Israeli and her husband leave the apartment at the same time, the dogs make their disapproval known, she said. “By that I mean an overturned garbage can, an overturned food bowl, perhaps they will not have used the pads that we leave at home if they need to use the loo, shall we say.”
As a therapist, Israeli views separation anxiety as a “two-way street.” Was she feeding her dogs’ anxiety? Or more telling, was she projecting her own anxiety onto the animals?
Her solution: eliminate the separation. Now she takes them to her office, where they sometimes become part of her therapy sessions, which are usually virtual.
“In many ways I’m indulging it,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t be saying to a parent who’s struggling with their child’s separation anxiety to do this.”