Coronavirus: Who Stressed the Dogs Out?

For reporter Sammy Caiola, the story was personal.

Caiola, the health care reporter for CapRadio — Sacramento's NPR member station — also considers herself the station’s de facto pet reporter.

“I’ve gotten pretty good at finding the animal angle on whatever the news of the day is,” she said.

Caiola lives in Sacramento with her husband, two roommates and two furry family members. For the last three years, Pepper (Caiola’s black lab mix) and Sunny (her roommate’s yellow lab/German Shepherd) have coexisted in “perfect harmony.”

Until last week, that is. In the span of just a few days, the two dogs got into fights so vicious that their owners had to physically separate them.

“Here we were thinking we had normal, well-behaved dogs who loved each other and suddenly they were at each other's throats,” Caiola said.

Pepper and Sunny, who once lived together “like sisters,” she said, now had tufts of hair missing from behind their ears and “little scratches” on their lips and noses.

The fighting changed the dynamic in the house, forcing the human residents to separate their 60-pound dogs.

“You don't want to hurt yourself. You don't want to hurt your dog," said Caiola. "It's very stressful.”

Of course, the dogs' behavior wasn't the only thing that was suddenly different. Like many of us, Caiola was now spending her days working from home. Instead of seeing Pepper after work for playtime and snuggles, she was planted at the dining room table, calling sources, concentrating on edits and churning out articles on heavy topics like domestic violence victims forced to shelter in place with their abusers, and how undocumented Californians with COVID-19 are getting treatment.

“Now that I'm working at [home], I think [Pepper] feels that she needs to be next to my desk,” Caiola said. "So she's, you know, not like going and having fun like she used to.”

Freaked out by Pepper's violent turn, Caiola called her dog’s trainer, and was surprised to hear that she wasn’t the only one concerned about new behavior problems. That set her on a mission to figure out if her dog’s bad behavior had anything to do with the COVID-19 crisis.

Long story short: it did.

After interviewing veterinarians, animal behaviorists and dog trainers for her story, Caiola implemented some of their suggestions at home. Sunny and Pepper now have crates. Both dogs are taking '"doggy Prozac" (aka Fluoxetine), prescribed by their vets. The goal is to raise their threshold for anxiety, so they aren't so easily triggered by each other.

Before sheltering in place, all four housemates and both dogs were able to easily hang out in the living room together and relax, Caiola said. Now, she’s just hoping the two dogs can soon be together in the same room again, even if it has to be on a leash.

But for now, she said, "the prerogative is really keeping them apart until we feel that they're calm.” 

Caiola's advice to other people whose pets are acting up is to “definitely make sure that you get multiple opinions.”

Other suggestions Caiola gathered through her reporting include:

• Maintain your pet’s typical routine.
• If your dog is exhibiting symptoms of extreme stress (like aggressive behavior), call your veterinarian to ask about behavioral treatment.
• Keep an eye on how your emotional state might be affecting your pet.
• Give your pet some alone time.

Read Caiola's full story here.