‘Pandemic pups’ still bringing joy
We were introduced to these “pandemic pups” in a story on people who were adopting dogs during the COVID-19 lockdown last spring. One year later, they are continuing to bring sunshine to their companions.
In April 2020, as COVID-19 was raging across Connecticut, Rhea was just a 12-week-old puppy. Her fur-sister, Luna, a Catahoula mix, rolled gently around in the grass with her. Fast-forward one year later and the two are of equal size, and they now romp around. Rhea’s name holds a story: “‘Rhea,’ like a ‘ray of sunshine,’ [because] we all need a little ray of sunshine right now,” said Cody Forrest last year, right after he and Allison O’Brien adopted her.
We got to meet Rhea last year, along with other “pandemic pups,” when we did a feature on people who were adopting dogs during the coronavirus lockdown. One year later, they continue to bring sunshine to their people.
O’Brien and Forrest — both teachers — had
been planning on adopting a dog after their 2020 summer wedding, but then the pandemic hit and their plans changed. They expanded their furry family ahead of schedule and adopted Rhea, knowing their wedding was up in the air and they’d be home all summer to train and work with her.
“[The] end of August, early September, we both went back to work full time. So that was definitely an adjustment for Rhea because she was used to both of us being [home],” O’Brien said. “Thankfully, I think Luna helped her a lot because I think she probably would have had some anxieties if she was alone.”
But even though O’Brien and Forrest went back to work, O’Brien still has virtual teaching days and Forrest works at Oxford Academy where the family lives on-campus. So Rhea can sit in the window and watch the school building to wait for Forrest to come home.
“[Rhea and Luna] usually know he’s home before I do,” O’Brien said.
Maya Rose, who is now a sophomore at Boston University, found her first year away at college coming to an abrupt halt as campus shut down, and she moved back home with her parents in West Hartford. Presenting a persuasive PowerPoint presentation, the family brought “Moose,” a chihuahua-beagle mix, home. And now, Rose is in Boston, but Moose is still in West Hartford.
“It was sad saying ‘goodbye’ to Moose,” Rose said, “but since my parents work from home, they could pick up a lot of his care responsibilities.”
And her dad sends her pictures of Moose multiple times a week.
“We knew Moose is Maya’s dog, but we knew that it was a co-ownership arrangement,” her dad Jack Dougherty said. And that’s exactly what it’s been.
Adopting Moose from a shelter called “Where the Love Is,” Dougherty said last year they were just trying to share the love, and this last year has definitely been about sharing the love.
Just as humans weren’t able to socialize normally, dogs weren’t able to be socialized as normally and easily, either.
Living on a corner lot in West Hartford, Dougherty has put together a socialization basket and fixed it to the fence. In this basket is a container labeled “Moose treats” and tennis balls, which neighbors and friends walking by can take and give to Moose to snack on and play with.
“People throw balls, and then we do treats, and he’s gotten better — he’s not perfect at all, but he’s gotten better,” Dougherty said. “It’s kind of funny; we [say it’s] how we’ve been ‘crowdsourcing’ dog training.”
Moose — and subsequently his human family — has made new friends all over the neighborhood.
Sini Sanchez — a student at King Philip Middle School — and her family adopted their 1-year-old rescue, Benji, the day schools sent students home. It was the Sanchezes’ first dog. They, too, felt like quarantine was the perfect time to bring home a pup.
The families of Sanchez and Dougherty didn’t know each other prior to the pandemic, but they became friends through their dogs.
“It’s been great,” Dougherty said of the newfound friendship. “[The dogs] need socialization with each other. … Benji and Moose typically play in the afternoon about four days a week.”
Sanchez said having Benji has been a learning experience, and she said it’s nice to come home from school and have a dog to greet her, as well as a companion to go outside with for a walk.
“He’s a really tenacious dog,” Sanchez said.
While some folks knew they wanted to adopt a pup, others used their time at hometo give back and foster animals from a shelter.
When Melanie Sweet was laid off from her restaurant work in March of 2020, she reached out to the Protector of Animals small dog rescue shelter out of East Hamden, telling them that if they needed fosters she had “plenty of time” on her hands. Very quickly she was approved and mother-daughter Chihuahua mix duo Honey and Nala came into her care. After three weeks, they stole her heart and she began the process of adoption.
Sweet was home with the girls for about a month and a half before she returned to work.
“It was nice to get them [settled]; it was nice to have that month [with them],” Sweet said. “And then it was a little tough at first to get back into [my] work schedule because [I] was home for a couple hours a day, and then [the pups] had some separation anxiety.”
But after the short adjustment on both the pup’s end and Sweet’s, they are thriving in their new sense of normal.
As things began to slow down a bit for Sydney Lyons, she knew she could take on a puppy as part of her role with Mutt Mafia, a Tennessee-based rescue. As Mutt Mafia’s “adoption coordinator of Connecticut,” Lyons was used to screening applications, doing meet-and-greets and helping furry friends find their forever homes, but she ended up becoming a pup’s forever home last year.
Winston, who was a 12-week-old pit bull mix medical case when he came into the care of Lyons, is now rambunctious, friendly and healthy.
When Lyons picked Winston up, she had no intentions of adopting him. But then he got sick from his medical complications and nearly died. That’s when she knew she couldn’t let him go.
“Immediately, I was like, ‘I can’t give him away. I’m so attached. He’s the love of my life,’” Lyons said. “So I kept him this year and, honestly, it was the best decision I’ve made.”
Lyons was originally planning on going to graduate school in Boston before deciding to continue her studies at UConn in their Master’s of Social Work program. With her decision to stay in Connecticut, she and Winston moved out of Lyons’ parents home and into their own space in West Hartford.
From starting grad school to moving, hybrid classes to working an internship and her job as a dog trainer, all on top of navigating a pandemic, Winston has helped Lyons through the change.
“He’s there as a stability for me,” Lyons said.