People Who Got Dogs in Lockdown Tell Us How It's Going

It would be distasteful to declare a “winner” of the pandemic. But, gun to head, dogs have had it pretty good. Blissfully unaware of the reason their best friends are suddenly home all the time and eager to take them on long walks, pups are likely to catalogue 2020 as a Pretty Good Year. They’re also too busy tail-wagging to realise the price of puppies has doubled in the UK since 2019, while puppy scams have spiked globally.

If this is making you panic about puppies the way you did about toilet paper in April, please don’t. Just because you can get a dog, doesn’t mean you should. We spoke to new dog owners all over the world about how it’s been going, and whether adopting a four-legged friend was the right decision.

For Hanna and her husband Dave, who share an apartment in inner-city Melbourne, miniature schnauzer Lulu has added some excitement to living through one of the world’s longest lockdowns.

“We had heard about puppy scams, where buyers were paying inflated prices for their puppies to secure their position on a waitlist, only to be later told that there was no puppy,” said Hanna. The pair managed to avoid getting conned, but collecting Lulu from Queensland – about 2,000 kilometres north of Melbourne – proved complicated.

“Unfortunately, because of COVID, the airlines stopped carrying puppies unless they were at least 12 weeks, and even then they were cancelling flights last minute. We ended up arranging for her to be driven down for AU$350 [€210].”

Current restrictions in Melbourne allow people two hours of outdoor time in the spring weather, but Lulu has been even more restricted.

“She’s still only 11 weeks old and is waiting for her final vaccinations before she’s allowed outside,” said Hanna, adding that the choice to take the plunge during lockdown was the right one. “The main perk is having the excitement and joy that comes with a puppy. She’s always ready to play, and incredibly affectionate.”

“Right now, it feels like getting a puppy during lockdown was a big, big mistake,” says Emma of the rescue pup she adopted with her boyfriend in July.

Overrun with COVID cases in April, New York City was in a state of panic. It was around that time that Emma started researching dog breeds and shelters. “I’d grown up all my life with dogs, and found myself pining over puppies on Instagram or dogs on the street when quarantine started,” she says. By July, her and her boyfriend had Archie.

But welcoming the “Labrador and shepherd” mix (they have doubts about Archie’s actual breed) into their tiny, 45th-floor one-bedroom apartment with no balcony has proved a nightmare. “We figured having a furry companion would get us out of the house – a place that had become suffocating,” she said. What they didn’t expect was Archie’s aversion to loud noise. Living in the middle of New York City, it’s made going outside with him incredibly stressful. “All of a sudden, we are spending less time outside than we were before we got him,” says Emma.

On top of that, toilet training has been “next to impossible” in a high rise. “I cried almost every day for the first few weeks,” says Emma. The couple has discussed the idea of sending Archie back several times. “If we had our time again, we probably would have waited. Puppies are hard, and NYC is hard, and COVID is hard. But Archie is our son and we made a commitment to him.”

Amsterdam was experiencing one of Europe’s looser lockdowns when Emilie adopted her dog Bowi in May. “I was actually already thinking about getting a dog for a really long time,” she says. “During the beginning of the lockdown I had my brother's dog to stay for a few weeks, and I figured if I could fit that in my schedule, then why not just get my own?”

Adopted from a shelter in Portugal, Bowi was four months old when she arrived in Amsterdam. “She's a mix of so many different things, but shape-wise she looks like a dachshund,” says Emilie, who admits that while adopting Bowi has altogether been a big positive, training her has been a challenge. “It takes some structure, planning and discipline… but we're getting there.”

While she says taking Bowi to her office – where there’s an older dog she can learn from – has helped with the training, as of October, Amsterdam’s newly tightened restrictions mean Bowi and Emilie might have to spend winter together at home.

During their first stringent lockdown in March, dog walking was one of the few “essential outings” allowing Spaniards to leave the house. How did people respond? Well, some tried renting out their dogs to those willing to pay for fresh air, while others tried their luck leashing up a fake pooch and taking it for a drag.

Victoria’s motivations for getting a dog were more longstanding: “My boyfriend and I are always working, so we never decided to get a dog, because we didn’t have time to educate and raise him. During lockdown, we thought, ‘This is the best moment.’”

The couple got Ozu, a 40-day-old Labrador shepherd, in April. “The house is small, so it has been difficult to be locked in,” she says, noting that there have been no extra outdoor perks given that Ozu also wasn’t allowed to go outside before his three-month vaccinations. “The perks of having a dog in lockdown were being able to be with him so he wouldn't break things at home alone,” she says.

“Having a young puppy while in lockdown worked out amazingly well,” says Tracey of her whippet-Italian greyhound, Floyd. “My partner and I had actually planned to get a puppy irrespective of lockdown, but he was ready to be picked up just as London went into lockdown. We had to get him a week earlier – and the breeder was very uneasy – because of the lockdown on unnecessary travel.”

Tracey says they’ve been able to bond much quicker with Floyd than they would have had they both been working in offices full time: “I don’t know how we would’ve done it without being home so much. Basically, the puppy would have suffered more.”

While it’s been a good time for them to get a dog, having to self-quarantine for two weeks after a holiday in summer meant the pair had to pay a dog walker to get Floyd out of the house. “It was for the sake of everyone’s sanity,” she says.