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‘Don’t Touch My Dog!’
This morning on my walk, I felt as if I’d been slapped.
Early mornings I love to greet the regular walkers on my route. I also wave at people in their cars, and many of them wave back with big smiles. Those smiles mean a lot to me as we navigate appropriate behavior during this wretched virus time.
Anyway, many of the walkers have dogs. Sometimes I pet them, at other times the dogs are too busy sniffing in the grass to give me the time of day. There is one fellow who walks one of the most beautiful German shepherds that I’ve ever seen. He has the gentlest temperament: you have to show most dogs your hand before you scratch them to avoid startling them. Somehow Gunner senses when you are reaching to scratch his head and just soaks up all the affection.
This morning I was going to scratch his ears since he actually turned toward me. Suddenly his owner, a nice fellow most of the time, said, oh no, don’t touch him! Not as long as this virus is with us.
Naturally, I quickly pulled back, startled by his reaction. I have mixed feelings about his comment. I don’t own, can’t own a dog due to my husband’s sensitivity to dog dander. And I know his reaction wasn’t personal since he has always been friendly in the past.
My reaction was two-fold. First, I would never jeopardize the safety of any dog or his owner. Most of the data is inconclusive about whether animals can catch or pass on the virus. And a childish part of me felt hurt. But my reaction had a second aspect: our lives are changing and will continue to be altered by this mysterious virus in surprising and disappointing ways.
I’m so tired of all of it. How long will we feel we need to take special precautions regarding this illness? How will our relationships and intimacy be affected by those we care about and love? Will restrictions become even more limiting, or will they gradually be relaxed? Will people get tired of restricting their lives in so many ways and start to act normally? Will it matter if the virus morphs into a less insidious illness so that people might feel less threatened? Are we simply all afraid of dying?
Will life ever seem normal again?
For now, I will resign myself to refraining from getting my “dog fixes.”
It makes me sad.
Published in General
“They can hold such a big place in our hearts. “
And our beds….
Well dang! What idiot came within six feet of them?
I call them face burqas , they come with religious police called Karens.
My daughter-the-veterinarian was with us this weekend, and I asked her about the virus and dogs. She said that it has turned out that no canines have been known to be asymptomatic, presymptomatic, or symptomatic carriers of the virus. A couple of months ago, there were reports of some dogs having the virus, but those turned out to be untrue.
However, there are documented instances of cats having the virus and exhibiting symptoms. Needless to say, we’re not testing cats routinely so we wouldn’t know if there are also cases of their being asymptomatic or presymtomatic carriers. :-)
What is concerning about this development to epidemiologists is that it is so rare for viruses to go this route, from humans to felines. It creates another unknown in what we know about this virus, and it is another weird and unexpected feature of its life cycle. If it jumps back from felines to humans, it will probably have mutated to do so. Again, it is an area of concern right now but not cause for panic. :-)
Thanks so much, @marcin, and thanks to your daughter, too! What an interesting development–and disconcerting, too. Just another missing piece of the puzzle.
Definitely disconcerting. I was beginning to think my dog had but it seems to have been some sort of intestinal bacterial thing. It seems to have passed…almost two thousand dollars later.
A cat cull is required just to be safe.
What we won’t do for our pets, bless them!