Amongst the dire circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) and the sad deaths there are some good things. In the UK all the gyms have shut under government orders. I usually go to the gym every day, first thing. It is a ten minute walk from my home and situated by the Thames, the mighty river that runs through London and which makes us happier. Instead I now do two, twenty minute sessions of Pilates at home, once first thing in the morning when I get up and secondly in the afternoon after I have worked on the site.
As soon as I lay down on the Pilates mat my cat Gabriel was very happy. He decided that I had got down to his level for him and immediately jumped on me. So I continued and he loved it; purring and meowing excitedly. He provided a little weight so it was also resistance training.
In general, companion cats and dogs have benefited from coronavirus on the basis that they are immune to the disease which the experts say they are based on current evidence. I am away from home less and therefore like many people across the world we are with our beloved companion cats more often and for longer. That’s got to be a good thing. And there are millions more employees in Britain who are now working from home with their cats and dogs to help them.
There is a current trend for posting pictures of cats and dogs ‘helping’ home workers. Let’s be honest, this is a time when cats and dogs can really contribute to the wellbeing of people who are confined to their homes.
Note: there is some advice about how to interact with your cat or dog if you have the coronavirus infection despite the inability of the virus to be transmitted from human to animal based on current evidence. This is because the experts are still a little unsure about human-to-pet and pet-to-human transmission of this zoonotic disease. It is a point worth making.
Other good things: less air pollution, less wanton consumerism, live animal market closure in China, possibility of animal welfare laws in China (am I dreaming?), petty troubles have been forgotten. People tend to pull together in difficult times in the UK and elsewhere.
P.S. Not all companion animals have benefited. Early on there were terrible reports from China of cat and dog owners throwing their companion animals out of high rise windows and of thousands of abandoned animals left to starve.
