COVID-19 had completely uprooted our lives during the past year and totally changed our routines. With quarantine and working from home, our pets got to spend a lot more time with their favorite humans. But how will your pets handle being home alone again when the family goes back to work and school?
Dr. Michele Drake offers some tips on how to help your pets adjust to life after COVID-19 in our latest video.
For the interview video with Dr. Michele Drake and Francine Miller of Call MsBehaving, go here.
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Video Transcript:
Hi everybody, it's Dr. Michele Drake, and I'm here with [Moki 00:00:02] today who's enjoying a little catnip on his blanket, and we're here to talk to you about things are getting back to normal. I think it's super exciting. San Diego's been amazing at getting everyone vaccinated. At the Drake Center we've all been vaccinated here for quiet awhile now. We're getting actually prepared as vaccines are almost close to having a herd immunity in San Diego, we're going to invite people back into the hospital.
During COVID, we had a lot of interesting things happen in our hospital. One is that we had so many new puppies. It was a great time for people to get puppies, they were home, they were bored, they needed something fun and positive in their lives and so congratulations to all the new puppy owners. But one thing we are a little concerned about, is that these puppies probably did not get as much socializing because they couldn't, as they would have benefited from. And you're all getting ready to go back to work and to school. I'm just going to talk to you a little bit about maybe baby steps of how to get your dog used to you being gone. And we do have a really great video, it's a little bit lengthy, but it's so worth your time. It's myself and a veterinary behaviorist. It's going to talk to you about steps to take to get your dog used to it, and I would highly encourage you have a look at that.
I do think some people got dogs who maybe weren't quite used to having one in their lives, and weren't setting up a nice routine of tons of exercise, getting into puppy classes. Now puppy classes are available, they've actually be available for a long time. We really wish you'd get puppy class. We want you to be exercising your pet a ton. With cats, obviously stimulating their environment, enriching their environment a lot to make sure they're having a really good situation for them. I think some cats maybe even appreciate that we're going back to work because they probably appreciate some alone time, but anyway just some things like that we just wanted you to be aware of and make sure that your puppy's set up on the right foot.
In addition, I think as you go back to work and school, there's a lot of dogs, especially if they're young and they're vibrant, meaning they have a lot of energy, they're going to need maybe some additional care and as opposed to leaving them at home and maybe where they're going to get into trouble, we do day boarding here. We have a actually pretty big backyard in the back and we bring dogs in and we make sure they get lots of attention, they're getting out regularly, and most importantly they're not at home barking at your neighbors, and destroying things in your house. Whether you come here, or some other day time fun things, play time for your dog, make sure that they have a place to go if being at home, left alone during the day, is not enough for them.
If you have any questions, give us a call at the Drake Center. Whether you come here, or we can help you find a place that's closer to you, or works better for you, we just want to make sure these dogs are doing well.