The coronavirus pandemic has brought a spike in pet ownership as lockdown citizens seek sentient company (not Netflix) at home. In Germany, the government, mindful of animal rights, has mandated that owners must walk their canine consorts and not just keep them as lapdogs. The dogs, in turn, are giving back by detecting contagious carriers. By Jeremy Torr.
Berlin, August 2020. As people around the world are adjusting to spending time away from other humans, they are seeking solace in four-legged friends. Indeed, a surge in pet ownership has been noted worldwide, with dogs right up there as substitute pub pals. In Germany, this surge has been noted by the administrators, who have raised concerns for the welfare of new pets being kept inside at all times to keep their new owners company during lockdowns of up to three weeks.
Pets are not cuddly toys - Julia Klöckner. Courtesy FRG
“We are acting in accordance with new scientific research about dogs' needs,” said German minister for agriculture Julia Klöckner. She said the government will also introduce a new law that will require dog owners to walk their (dogs) at least twice a day, for a total of at least one hour.
The new law is expected to come into effect early 2021, and will be policed by individual German states. Additionally, Klöckner has proposed that the new regulations would help clamp down on the rise in the number of puppy farms using battery farm bitches as production line puppy-makers. The additional rules would likely limit the number of dogs with puppies owned by breeders (to a maximum of three at once) and introduce maximum temperature for pets' living quarters. Individual owners are expected to be mindful of pet environments, with the proposed new rules also forbidding owners from tying up dogs for long periods of time or leaving them alone all day. Hot dogs have also been identified as a potential problem.
"With the current extreme temperatures (in Europe) we have to ensure that we can save animals from avoidable suffering through the heat — and the same applies to transportation," Klöckner added – although how these rules would be administered isn’t quite clear.
Trained German sniffer dogs. Courtesy Reuters.
Partly as thanks for owners now being (hopefully) more canine condition aware, German dogs are stepping up and giving back during the pandemic. Hanover University is working on a training program for sniffer dogs that could enable them to identify Covid-19 related scents on people or surfaces. In initial tests, the dogs were successful in sniffing out the virus in 94% of cases.
“We have been working on this for months, but need a little more time to be able to offer clear and accurate results,” said German minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. “The next steps are (training the dogs) to differentiate the virus from ordinary flu infections, or for carriers,” she added.
In France, the use of dogs to detect virus carriers is also being trialled by training them to detect changes in the smell of an infected person’s sweat, after only four days of training. No definitive results as yet, but the trainers are confident this approach will work well in countries that do not have sophisticated laboratory testing or sampling facilities.
So whether for company, or infection detection, it looks like dogs will be a definite asset during lockdowns.
"Pets are not cuddly toys," said Klöckner. “Their needs have to be considered.” Even more so if they can help minimise the spread of a deadly disease without adding to the mountain of discarded medical refuse.