Twist in the tail: Tiring of lockdown pals, owners abandon their pets

Finding it hard to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic and bored of being confined to their home, a couple in Kalkaji purchased a puppy in September.

- Priyangi Agarwal

New Delhi: The novelty wore off soon after, however, and when the Pomeranian turned 70 days old on Tuesday, they abandoned the poor creature. They aren’t the only ones. Pet owners backing out of their commitment to pets, mostly dogs, has been unusually high in the past six months, according to animal adoption agencies in Delhi-NCR.

An A45-year-old man abandoned his pair of four-year-old Labrador retrievers after he lost his job during the pandemic. When they were brought to an animal center, the male Labrador was doing poorly, his medical condition having been ignored all this while. A two-year-old Chow Chow was found abandoned at a parking lot in south Delhi. A woman called animal welfare NGO Posh Foundation and threatened to tie her eight-year-old pug to a street pole if it did not take the dog in.