The UK announced a nationwide lockdown on Monday to fight the spread of the coronavirus. The lockdown means people must not leave their homes unless it’s for ‘absolutely necessary’ reasons.
So do those absolutely necessary reasons include walking your dog?
According to government guidelines You should only leave the house for one of four reasons:
- Shopping for basic necessities, for example food and medicine, which must be as infrequent as possible.
- One form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle – alone or with members of your household. This does include dogs.
- Any medical need, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person.
- Traveling to and from work, but only where this absolutely cannot be done from home.
For dog walkers, this means they will be allowed to leave their home once a day to take their dog for a walk as part of these guidelines.
Households with two or more adults will have to take it in turns to walk their dog if the dog usually gets walked more than once a day.
If you live alone and your dog normally gets walked two times or more per day, you will be required to reduce this to just once a day.
You’ll also need to stay at least two meters away from any other dog walkers or members of the public you encounter, as part of the social distancing measures.
For those who defy the rules, UK Health secretary Matt Hancock said fines would start at £30 and could be unlimited
To keep your dog from getting bored, there are still tons of indoors activities that dogs can do. See below for 9 suggestions on how to keep your pooch entertained.
If you have a dog consider yourself fortunate to be able to go outside and get some fresh air and escape isolation (do follow the rules though).
But whatever you do, do not get a fake dog just so you can go outside, it’s not a good idea.