RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Have you noticed that your dog or cat has been acting differently now that you're working from home? You're not alone.
Dr. Karina Ballester with Creedmoor Road Animal Hospital said they're getting a lot more calls about pet behavior changes during the coronavirus pandemic.
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Here are some things pet owners might experience:
Increased neediness:
"Sometimes we have seen pets acting more affectionate and also acting a bit more needy of their owners because they are getting used to having all their needs met when their owners are at home. So they're asking to be taken outside, they like being taken outside much more frequently than they were before. So they're just getting used to the fact that whenever they ask for something they're more likely to have that need met than they were in the past. So we do see some changes in their behavior. And we also see owners noticing a lot more of these little behaviors that their pets are doing more frequently because they are there to pay attention to it."
Noticing new behaviors:
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"We are seeing that owners are noticing small behaviors, even normal and abnormal behaviors. And we get a lot of calls presenting to us, 'Hey, my pet is hiding under the bed', which any other time with the owners not being at home it would have taken them days to notice that their pet is being reclusive and now they tend to notice it right away. So we're seeing a lot more cases come in much earlier in the disease pattern than they were in the past because owners are being very aware of the little things that they do every day."
Separation anxiety when you return to work:
"The concern that the veterinary community has at the moment is pets developing separation anxiety after their owners leave when everything normalizes and they go back to work and they have become so accustomed to having their owners at home all the time. So it's something we advise people whenever we have a chance to communicate with them to make sure that their pets do have some alone time, that do continue to separate them either in a crate or however they're used to doing that so that the transition whenever the owners are ready to go back to work is not as hard on the pet as it would be if they're not getting them accustomed to being away from them."