Will You Surrender Your COVID Dog

by WCWadmin | Jun 16, 2023 | World Health

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people adopted dogs for companionship.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Dog Ownership and Surrender Rates

Libby Sheridan MVB MRCVS, Purina Scientific Affairs Manager for the UK and Ireland says that the changes brought about by the pandemic were significant, “It’s clear that all individuals have found it stressful coping with the effects of the pandemic. This study shows that dogs played an important role in people’s lives by offering comfort and companionship throughout these difficult times.”

She continued, “The survey provided a unique opportunity to shed light on whether dog ownership would help to reduce or buffer the negative psychological effects of COVID-19. The research aimed to build on prior evidence that suggests that dogs can contribute to their owner’s positive affective state – a psychological term describing when people are in generally positive frame of mind like excited, enthusiastic, and inspired. Purina also set out to gain a better understanding of whether the power of the pet-owner bond continued to persist during the pandemic. Not only was the effect of dogs shown to be positive, it was also measurable and statistically significant.”

These results show the positive psychological impact of dog ownership during uncertain times and the important role played by dogs in reducing the negative impact of adverse circumstances on people.

As so many people are heading back to in person work and school, there is an alarming trend of people choosing to surrender the dogs they adopted during COVID. What about you? Will you surrender your COVID dog?

This is something that many of us in the dog training world have been holding our breath hoping not to see and it’s so sad to see it actually coming to pass. As people return to work and pre-pandemic social activities, they are surrendering the dogs they adopted during COVID to shelters.

This is doubly tragic as the demand for dogs during the pandemic led to increased breeding so we are now seeing dogs that were specifically bred to meet the demand for puppies being abandoned by their owners. If I’m honest, this makes me incredibly angry, however, my anger doesn’t really help the situation. What does help is support, training and education.

So, I’ll be focusing on more ways to help people struggling with the transition back to work make it easier for your dog. This will include lots of enrichment activities to help your dog thrive at home when you aren’t there along with tips, tools and resources for helping your dog avoid or overcome Separation Anxiety. Check out the four-part series I wrote on helping your dog transition to your return to work at this link.

Addressing Dog Surrenders and Providing Support Amidst the Return to Normalcy:

The vast majority of surrendered dogs have not received any formal training. Add to that the development of separation anxiety and reactivity we are seeing in dogs that spent all day every day with their people during the pandemic and we end up with too many shelter dogs who are at the critical age of around a year old who don’t know their basic manners and cry/bark/destroy the house when left alone which hinders their ability to be adopted.

The point of this rant is to highlight the problem and to share how I plan to be part of the solution. I’m getting started with the following three activities and will share more over the coming weeks and months. How will I do that? Again, if I’m honest, I haven’t decided all the ways that I will put these solutions into action. Today, I’m sharing with you at least how I’m getting started:

I will soon be offering separation anxiety group & private online training programs to walk you through the steps to help your dog overcome their separation anxiety.
I’m setting up a Facebook group specifically for dog training problems, separation anxiety issues and return to work logistics where you can get free help from me and the community on making this transition work for you and your dog.
I’m launching a public service informational campaign to support people who are considering surrender make a reasoned decision and, for those who decide to keep their dog, take the steps that will make that work. So far I’ve booked one interview and am scheduling several Facebook Lives in conjunction with the group mentioned earlier. I’ll follow up with details on all of that shortly.

Follow me on Facebook to stay up to date on my latest support activities.

The outlook for dogs isn’t all doom and gloom of course as many people not only keep their dogs come heck or high water, they arrange their life around their dog. I’m one of those people myself. One of the reasons I wanted to be self-employed was so that I wouldn’t have to be away from Jake (who has separation anxiety) during those all too common 9-5 hours.

Julie Naismith, my favorite authority on separation anxiety in dogs and someone whose courses I love (I’m currently enrolled in her certification course for separation anxiety trainers to up-level my skills), polled her audience and found that a full 85% of them said they would consider calling in sick to take care of their dog (I’ve totally done that when I worked for others), and 54% said they even considered changing jobs to accommodate their dog’s needs (I’ve done that, too).

These statistics don’t surprise me at all when you consider the profound impact our dogs have on our lives. For me, the people who are surrendering dogs now that they are going back to work are completely missing the point.

It’s not the dog that is inconvenient, it’s the people who haven’t understood what the dog has done for them. Lots of things in life are inconvenient, and sure, dogs can be one of those things sometimes, but dogs are inconvenient in the same way children are or having to count your money or get dressed in the morning is, certainly not in a way that warrants abandonment (oops, ranting again)!

Back to the positive…tomorrow is National Mutt Day. Although I work with both purebred dogs and mutts, mixed-breeds are my favorite. I love the excitement of figuring out what breed genetics will drive their behavior and how their looks evolve. Like life, mutts are unpredictable and I love them for that. My Jake is a mutt who is primarily a mix of lab/boxer/Dalmatian with about 15 other breeds (how great is it that we can DNA test our dogs now?). Tomorrow, he will be getting a massage from his personal canine masseuse, Tracee, from Spry Dog Massage, along with a specially cooked meal (I haven’t decided what yet) and lots of “mommy and me” time.

National Mutt Day 2021- Why USA Love to Celebrate National Mutt Day? - National Day 2021

Will you be doing anything special for your mutt tomorrow? If you have a purebred dog, feel free to spoil them as well or wait for Spoil Your Dog Day on August 10. Another opportunity to spoil dogs that are feeling a little needy right now is DOGust on August 1 which is the Universal Birthday for Shelter Dogs. If you don’t have a shelter dog at home, maybe you can volunteer to walk or play with some shelter dogs in your area, drop off necessities like towels and food to your local shelter (or drop off a bunch of cool toys for the shelter pups) or donate money if you have more of that than time and the shelter will spend every penny wisely on your behalf.

OK! I hope this post has given you some food (or treats) for thought. I’ll update you on times/dates for the interviews & lives I have in the pipeline. If you have questions about returning to work and/or dog behavior let me know in the comments and I’ll include the answers in future newsletters and/or the Lives.

Here are some additional dog holidays in August to spark your imagination:

August 1: DOGust Universal Birthday for Shelter Dogs
August 10: Spoil Your Dog Day
August 15: National Check the Chip Day
August 17: International Non-Profit Day
August 21: International Homeless Animals’ Day
August 23: International Blind Dog Day
August 26: National Dog Day
Aug. 28: Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day
August 30: National Holistic Pet Day

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Algorithm Sets Parameters for Waves of COVID-19

by WCWadmin | Jun 7, 2023 | World Health

Cardiff University News (U.K.)

The researchers from Cardiff University and the University of Oxford developed an algorithm which identifies substantial, significant, and sustained periods of increase, described as “observed waves”, when applied to daily cases and fatalities of Covid-19.

Their study, published in Heliyon, addresses the lack of set criteria to define each wave of coronavirus despite extensive scrutiny of pandemic data and frequent discussion of waves in media coverage and public life.

Dr Adam Mahdi, founder of the University of Oxford’s OxCOVID19 project, said: “Our algorithmic approach offers a tangible means to identify and understand observed waves of disease.

“By revealing the types, drivers, and modulators of Covid-19 waves, our research contributes to the broader analysis of the epidemic‘s progression.”

Co-author Professor Ricardo Aguas from the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford added: “Applying an algorithm to a spectrum of time series data can help address relevant epidemiological questions: How can we best define an epidemiological wave? Intuitively, anyone would guess that a series of rising and falling cases would make a wave. However, by how much does it need to rise and drop for it to be epidemiologically meaningful?”

Periods of higher infection were identified as meaningful waves of the disease rather than more temporary fluctuations if they were sufficiently long and sufficiently severe. Dips between waves were ignored unless the case rate fell below a certain threshold of the peak value.

The algorithm provides a tool for policymakers and public health experts to better comprehend and respond to the dynamics of future epidemics and pandemics. With the ability to uniformly describe and analyse observed waves, decision-makers can refine their strategies and interventions, aiming for a more effective and targeted approach to disease management.

Co-author Dr John Harvey, a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellow at Cardiff University, observes that proposing uniform definitions for concepts that cannot be easily defined is a commonly used scientific technique, drawing a similarity with body weight measurement.

“Nobody would claim that a person magically becomes underweight the moment their BMI goes below 18.5 – there is nothing special about this particular number and every individual is different. But drawing a line somewhere – anywhere – makes it possible to study the effects of being underweight.

“We can do the same exercise with a wave. Once something has a definition, you can start to investigate and understand it.”

The researchers employed their algorithm to synthesise Covid-19 data across different countries, adopting a wave-centric view.

The analysis of individual countries revealed significant variations in consecutive observed waves, particularly in terms of the case fatality ratio.

A more detailed examination revealed diverse geographical ranges for consecutive observed waves, especially in larger countries.

The study, funded by UKRI via ‘A multi-modal Covid 19 database for research’, also confirmed the impact of government interventions on modulating these waves, with early implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions found to correlate with a reduced number of observed waves and a decreased mortality burden during those waves.

From “Algorithm Sets Parameters for Waves of COVID-19”
Cardiff University News (U.K.) (06/05/23)