DAY 7

SIT! STAY! The 21 DAY DOG CHALLENGE

As we all sit around in our homes with our pampered pooches by our side, we have found it easy to complain. Pet parent group chats include sentences such as “Oh Gawd, my poor darling has to now eat ghar ka khana as her gluten-free imported food has stopped”, or “Darling, my fur baby missed her weekly trip to Alibaug because of this silly lockdown”, or “I don’t know when the ice-cream shop will reopen so my pooch can get her favourite flavour”.

As tough as our lives may seem for our dogs, our current dilemma as pet parents as to why our dogs are not pooping enough, or how to keep them rom destroying your designer sofa seem insignificant when compared to the lives that dogs on the streets are currently living.

Since many restaurants are shut, the garbage removed, they have to work harder to get their meals. The feeders across India are doing a great job of ensuring they get fed, but what about the hatred they are seeing thanks to the misinformation?

People are shooing them away from outside their homes, even dog owners aren’t allowing their dogs close in the fear that the street dog may have the virus. There is even a video of a woman shooting at them ‘because they are dirty’!

And so the pariah truly becomes the outcast.

If there is one thing we have learnt during this pandemic is that the entitled people tend to lose their common sense and compassion.

We all know that dogs do not transmit COVID-19, but for those that didn’t get it the first time, here it is – ALL DOGS CANNOT TRANSMIT COVID-19 – AND THAT INCLUDES STREET DOGS.

So stop chasing them away from outside your homes, instead why not put out a bowl of water; stop hating them- its the humans who are to blame for this pandemic, not the dogs; stop treating them as untouchable – social distancing is for humans not for dogs. And stop spreading misinformation.

Testing times should bring out compassion in us, not hatred.

This disease will pass, as all diseases do; and will change us as it does. I hope it makes us all into kinder humans. Remember, the curve that needs flattening is not just for the virus, but for hatred too.