While being mandated to stay at home may be detrimental to most things, it turns out to be an ideal situation for getting a brand new puppy.

“We definitely would not have gotten a puppy if it weren’t for COVID,” Lily Cooper’23 of Madison, Wisconsin said. 

Cooper’s dad has always been advocating for a dog, but between full-time jobs and school, it wasn’t realistic. 

“Now that everyone is home for the foreseeable future and for the span of a puppyhood, we have the time to raise a puppy,” Cooper said. 

Otis, the newest addition of the Cooper family, is an eight-week-old standard poodle that only weighs 10 lbs. Like a human baby, he cries, doesn’t like to be alone and gets tired from too much activity. But besides being a big responsibility, Otis is encouraging Cooper’s family to new activities. 

“We take nightly walks together with the dog, and yesterday I ran around in the backyard with him,” Cooper said. “And I wouldn’t be playing in the backyard if not for a puppy,”. 

For Muriel Ambrus ’23, a new dog was always in the works for spring 2020, but the original plan was to skip the puppy years and get an adult dog.

“My parents were like ‘actually, we can get a puppy’ once they realized how long it was going to be like this.”

Ambrus and her family recently drove out to a breeder in Brainerd, Minnesota to pick up their new Rottweiler puppy. The name brainstorming process was a long one, but Ambrus’ family finally agreed on one: Tula.

“She’s so cute!” Ambrus said. “But she bites a lot.”

Nationally, animal shelters have reported an increase in pet adoption rates due to shelter-in-place orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. And while some shelters are closed to the public, they are continuing the adoption process online and allowing drive-up appointments.