Masks for dogs: Yay or nay?
As face masks become an essential part of our lives, many people have also begun to adorn their pets in cute, customised face masks, and are sharing the pictures on social media.
A Twitter post by USbased @Kuwabigaill gave impetus to this trend. She posted a picture of her pooch, posing in a handmade mask, and captioned it, “My mom made my dog a mask.”
Fashion savvy denizens are now using pet masks to convey the message of staying safe. “I made my puppy a mask with some leftover cloth,” says Radhika Sharma, a Gurugram resident, adding, “I felt that if
I twin with my puppy and put it on social media, it’ll brighten up everyone’s lockdown, which it totally did!”
However, it’s not easy to make pets wear the mask, opines Sunny Singh, a fitness professional from Delhi. He says,
“It’s not a bad idea, but because my dog is hyper, he doesn’t keep the mask on for more than five minutes (laughs).”
But do dogs really need masks? Dr Santosh Kumar from a pet clinic in Niti Bagh clarifies, “One or two cases of pets testing positive for Covid-19 or reporting for its symptoms can’t be a representative. That may be due to very high load of virus in their surrounding or just an exception. So, there is no point to put a mask on pets. Covid-19 is not a zoonotic disease as yet.”