Who Let The Dogs Out? Not Shanghai’s Covid Cops
By Natasha Khan and Liyan Qi, April 4, 2022, WSJ
That all changed last week, when Wu Qianyu, an official
with the Shanghai municipal health commission told citizens,
in effect, that the quarantine rules apply equally to man and
man’s best friend alike. That meant no setting foot outside
apartment units, including corridors and parking lots—not for
throwing out the garbage, not for jogging and not for walking pets.
As the implications of the dog lockdown became clear, pet owners
spent their final hours of freedom stocking up on extra dog food
and chew toys. Others collected leaves, dug up mulch and ordered
patches of grass to set up “outdoor areas” in their homes.
The founder of a local pet training academy held a live-streamed
lesson on his social-media account to help owners train their dogs
to get comfortable doing their business indoors. A Shanghai-based
pet-sitting startup, Spare Leash, organized a virtual “doga”—that’s dog yoga—class for pets and their owners.
One local vet, invited onto a local radio station to dispense
advice to dog owners, counseled buying pet diapers and emphasized
the importance of offering more emotional support to their animals.
Some have struggled to adapt. One video widely circulated among
Shanghai dog owners showed a small white dog being lowered from
an apartment block onto the grass below by a very long leash
before doing its business.
Robert Gatti, an American expatriate in Shanghai, bought two big
bags of fresh sod from a grass dealer, which he laid out in a few
squares on his balcony. He then added some leaves he picked by hand
from bushes outside his building for a pop of color and detail to
recreate a park scene for his Shanghai rescue dog Xixi. “My dog is
from the streets,” Gatti said. “I think she can manage this.”
Heather Kaye, a NYC native who has lived in Shanghai for 16 years,
isn’t so sure about Ruthie, her 4-year-old mutt mix, who is used to
walking about 3 miles each day.
Kaye, a fashion designer who's hunkering down with her husband and
two adolescent daughters, had a roughly 10-sq-ft patch of grass
delivered a day before the lockdown.
Ruthie just stared at it, baffled. Rather than try to teach her
old dog new tricks, Kaye called a municipal govt hotline to leave
messages pleading for more attention to dogs and their owners. The
family has decided it’s time to move back home.
“I really get why [the govt] did what they did for Delta but this
is a totally different game now,” said Kaye, who described her move
as motivated both by personal reasons and the Covid restrictions.
“We love Shanghai but we cannot do this anymore. It’s too much.”
Kaye’s business partner, Indian expatriate Itee Soni, had spent
recent weeks bringing her small dog Robyn, a 3-year-old terrier,
almost everywhere she went, including the office and the grocery
stores, in case she was caught in one of China’s periodic snap
lockdowns, which have trapped unwitting people in shopping malls
and office towers for hours and even days after an infection or
close contact was identified there.
Soni, who recalls earlier lockdowns in which dog-walking was
permitted, said she tried to give Robyn a crash course in potty
training as the lockdown approached. But delaying Robyn’s daily
walks only seemed to stress her out, without the desired effect.
After preparing a “go bag” for Robyn filled with treats and
lotion, then making arrangements to have Robyn stay with Kaye,
Soni changed her mind the day before the lockdown began, rushing
Robyn to a pet hotel a half-hour’s drive outside the city, fearing
that she might test positive for Covid and be taken away by health
officials, leaving Robyn home alone for an indefinite amount of time.
“I’ve used up all my bandwidth thinking about Robyn’s safety,” Soni said. “This round of outbreak and lockdown really broke me a little.”
Kedl, the longtime American expatriate who dug up the familiar soil
for his dogs Xiaoxiao and Lala, has found it harder going than he
had expected.
On the first day of lockdown, the dogs seemed not to notice having
missed their morning walk, but when the afternoon walk time came
without any signs of motion, Kedl said, “their eyes started crossing
and they were getting a little nervous.”
So Kedl, following the advice of one member of his Shanghai dog
owners’ chat group, cordoned off the section of the balcony where
he had set up the patch of grass, sprinkled with the soil he had
scooped up, hoping to cultivate a sense of mystery around the faux-
outdoor area.
Then, in line with the instructions he had read, when it was time
for a walk, Kedl dutifully leashed up his two dogs, walked them
the 10 steps to the secret “outdoor” area and just waited.
But rather than get on with it, Kedl’s two dogs sat down on the
grass, blinking bemusedly at him. “They were questioning my sanity,” Kedl said. “And I’m not disagreeing.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-let-the-dogs-out-not-shanghais-covid-cops-11649018759
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