When the pandemic started, and lockdowns were put in place most of us had to stay at home unless you were a key worker. Due to having to work from home a lot of people decided to get pets to keep them occupied whilst being in the house more often than usual.
When searching online for pets, websites saw a huge increase in people looking to get their first pet with there now being more new pet owners than ever before. The pandemic caused a lot of people to get pets to keep them occupied and to help with their mental health from being stuck at home. Unfortunately, there were a lot of pets that were not looked after correctly which led to dog shelters and rehoming facilities being overrun with a huge number of new pets coming in.
Due to a lot of people being put on furlough or losing their jobs they had to find an income and a few people turned to breeding dogs during covid which brought them in an income, this however turned out to be bad as the demand in dogs rose meaning dogs were now having puppies a lot more than they usually would. This put a lot of strain on many dogs and led to them being abandoned or having to be put down.
Pets are now more popular to have than ever before with many of us now owning a pet, covid caused a lot of people to get pets who have never had a pet before. Dog breeding is now at a record high with there being huge amounts of puppies being sold each week. A lot of people do not realise how much dedication it takes to own a dog, dogs are for many years, and they take a lot of time and patience. Covid causing a surge in new puppy owners has put a lot of dogs at risk from being over bred which is not good for the dog or the puppies as some are turning out to have long term health problems from being bred too soon.
The pandemic has caused a lot of people to rush into getting a new pet without thinking about the bigger picture, people need to take their time in deciding what type of pet to get and not just following the trends they see online of certain types of pets.