Pets enjoying owners being home during pandemic

Original article on The News-Enterprise
By:
Becca Owsley

While everyone may not be happy to be home during the COVID-19 outbreak, there are some members of the household that are happy to have their humans home, pets.

For some, they’ve become a work from home co-worker. Others are just enjoying more time with their human family.

Jennifer Pinto of Eliza­bethtown has a 4-year-old Yorkie named Chewy she’s been spending time with while working from home.

“Chewy has been over the moon to have his humans at home all of the time,” Pinto said. “He is very much a dog who likes to be around his people 24/7, so he has really been living his best life during quarantine.”

As a teacher, she’s been working from home. She said working with Chewy has been “interesting.”

“Sometimes he just naps next to me while I work on my lessons for my classes, but other times he thinks he’s the watchdog of the house and he needs to alert me to any potential threats,” she said. “So there can sometimes be lots of barking.”

She said Chewy also can be a bit demanding and expects Pinto to drop what she’s doing if he wants something.

“All of that being said, I definitely love getting to spend more time with my dog than I normally would be able to,” she said. “It’s much nicer than working completely alone.”

But when Pinto has to go back to work at school when all this is over, she’s pretty sure Chewy will not be happy.

“He loves going on rides in the car, so he used to always get upset when he would see me getting in the car to go to work without him,” she said. “But I think he’ll adjust to the normal routine of things.”

For Cheyenne Owens of Radcliff, she’s experiencing life at home with a dog and cat.

Her dog Morty is a Great Pyrenees and Border Collie mix and Niko, her cat, is a Maine Coon mix.

Her experience is a little different because her office put her on administrative leave until she’s able to come back. So she’s not working while at home.

“I will say they have brought some comfort to me during this time,” she said. “Morty definitely makes me want to get up and get out of the house and actually do something with my time.”

But Owens thinks it will be hard on them when she does go back to the office. She thinks it will be hardest on Niko.

“He’s an inside/outside cat and has been able to come and go as he pleases throughout the day,” she said. “I’ve kept my front door cracked on every nice day so they are able to do as they please pretty much all day.”

Owens said the cat probably will throw fits in the mornings when she goes back to her work routine because he won’t be allowed outside until she gets home.

Xander, Mia Kate, and Eden, of Elizabethtown, are Bettany Brown’s Havanese dogs and have enjoyed having Brown at home.

“When social distancing first began they seemed a little confused why I was home all day,” she said. “Some days I feel like I am interfering in their daily routine of napping most of the day.”

As a therapist at Brighter Futures Coun­seling, she’s using Tele­health to continue seeing her clients.

“My dogs are making their cameo appearance as therapy dogs during sessions, and the kids I work with love seeing my dogs,” she said.

Having her dogs around at this time has been comforting to Brown.

“My dogs are very cuddly and compassionate and offer some peace in a chaotic world right now,” she said.

When Brown goes back to seeing patients in the office, she thinks her dogs will miss her being home with them.

“But my dogs have a very routine schedule, and I think they are ready for things to be normal again,” she said.

Phil Rotstein