RUFF TRANSITION
Nicole Cueto sobbed as she locked the door of her apartment and heard her dog, Marty, crying hysterically on the other side.
“He was anxious and upset,” the Manhattan communications consultant and real estate agent recalled of the incident earlier this year. It was the first time she had to go out to work in months. “It was extremely traumatic for the both of us, and I could not focus on my job for days after.”
To help him cope, Cueto has invested $340 in professional pet training and counseling — a fraction of the amount many concerned owners are forking over — and Marty is becoming accustomed to being apart from his owner.
The boxer mix is among millions of animals across the US who are already suffering from separation anxiety or are set to experience its effects after enjoying human company 24/7 since the pandemic took hold in March 2020.
Now that people are getting vaccinated,
offices are reopening and the work-from-home trend is diminishing, the critters are feeling lonely and confused.
“We’ve been inundated with inquiries from worried dog guardians,” expert animal trainer and counselor Malena DeMartiniPrice told The Post. “They’re taking little trips out of the house, and their pets are shredding the carpets, and neighbors are complaining about barking.
“All the indicators show something is not well with their dogs.”
One of her clients, Jane Yates, has spent $4,800 so far to help her 18-month-old mutt, Jasper, adjust to the sad reality that she is physically returning to work in less than two weeks.
“We’re paying $800 per month — the cost of a large car repair — but it’s worth every cent,” said Yates, a lab administrator in Portland, Ore., who enlisted the virtual services of a DeMartini-Price associate last October.
“All dogs have to learn that nobody can be truly present for them 24/7/365 and to live with their emotions and discomfort,” she added.
The pup, rescued off the streets and believed to be a Chihuahua/ pit bull mix, bonded with Yates to such an extent that he once dug holes under a fence to try and follow her out.
“I returned from my walk to hear him alternating between barking and howling from a block away,” said the 55-year-old. “If I so much as put on a mask or picked up my keys, he would jump on the door and cry.”
The solution has been a desensitization program, which involves Jasper spending incrementally longer periods of time alone.
For example, Yates began leaving her kitchen for the garage and returning after a few seconds. Then, when Jasper eventually recognized she would always come back, she increased the time away. Over the winter, she worked in the garage for several hours using a space heater to keep warm.
She installed three cameras in her home, so she could monitor the dog’s behaviors, “as if I were [primatologist] Jane Goodall watching chimps,” said Yates.
Thankfully, Jasper responded well to the training.
“My husband and I decided we would do whatever we needed to make it work,” concluded Yates, who was even prepared to give up her job if Jasper was unable to cope with the change. “We love this dog very much.”