Ruff life: 9 things we’ve learned from our dogs during the pandemic

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, we’ve all been spending a lot more time at home with our pets. For some, our dogs have gone above and beyond man’s best friend to become our closest coworkers.

In honor of National Dog Day, we’re looking back at the last five months of spending more time at home to come up with nine things we all may have learned from our four-legged friends.

READ: Toxic toads that can kill your dog in minutes moving into Central Florida; how to protect your pets

1. Walks are worth begging for: When shops, restaurants and nearly all forms of entertainment are shut down, we’re forced to use our own two feet to keep ourselves busy. That means after shuffling the short dozen-odd steps of your commute from the bedroom to your makeshift workstation, we’re left itching to stretch our legs. Now we know why our dogs are so desperate for yet another W-A-L-K.
2. Strangers are exciting (and a little bit scary): Do you see that? There’s a person walking up the sidewalk towards us! What do we do? Jump up and down? Cry desperately for affection? Hide behind our parents’ legs? Maybe we’ll just cross to the other side of the street. These days, encountering a human outside our homes can be equally unnerving and exhilarating. Dogs, now we finally understand you.
3. All they do is sleep: Have you ever been curious what your dog does all day while you’re at work? Well now that we never leave home, we know their secret. All they do is sleep.
4. Dogs are needy coworkers: While you’re trying to run your business, your furry office mate is dragging you outside multiple times a day to do theirs.
5. Mail and delivery workers are worth celebrating: Could it be? Is that the mailman? Sound the alarm! As humans, we know they’re not a threat. But they could be bringing us the jumbo-sized order of toilet paper we finally scored on Amazon! Or a new puzzle! The possibilities or endless. Or it’s just junk mail.
6. There’s a reason Zoom has a mute button: You’re in a meeting, going about your business, when a coworker’s dog starts barking. Then your dog starts barking. Soon you have a whole “101 Dalmatians” situation on your hands. This is why we have a mute button.
7. Meals you don’t make yourself are THE BEST: Have you ever been surprised that your dog is so excited to eat, even though you feed them the exact same thing every night? Maybe that’s because they don’t have to make it themselves. Without restaurants to wait on us, a meal we didn’t make ourselves has become a luxury.
8. Dogs really are loyal: They’re still not sick of us even after spending 24 hours a day together seven days a week. If we walk down the driveway to take out the trash, they’ll still greet us like we’ve been gone for hours (even if we literally haven’t gone anywhere for hours in months).
9. Dogs make everything better: They may be smelly and needy compared to our normal coworkers, but what’s better than a dog to love and snuggle at the end of a long day? Not much.

Video: Specialized diet possibly linked to heart disease in dogs, FDA says When Rob Hart started feeding his dog, Blue, a specialized diet, he thought he was doing it to better his dog's health.

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