‘Pet owners deserve family leave too’

WHILE so many people are hung up on the necessity of maternity leave, one group continues to be overlooked when it comes to paid time off from work.

Writer Lindsay Putnam says she would have benefited from ‘paw-ternity’ leave when she got her cat. Picture: Megan Martin

BRINGING my adopted cat, Jameson, home with me in 2014 was one of the happiest days of my life.

Having to go back to work two days later was one of the worst.

While so many people are hung up on the necessity of maternity leave — or even the newly coined “maternity” — one group continues to be overlooked when it comes to paid time off from work: new pet owners.

“Paw-ternity” leave is already a reality in the UK — the US pet-insurance provider Petplan found that nearly five per cent of new pet owners in the UK were offered time off to care for their four-legged kids.

It’s time for the rest of the world to hop aboard the “paw-ternity” train. It’s not just because I want to stay home and cuddle on the couch with my new feline (which I do). When I adopted Jameson, he was six years old and had spent the previous year of his life in an animal shelter. He was suffering from several health problems after being neglected by his previous owner — and was skittish, nervous and uncertain about why he was suddenly being transported to a strange new home.

I couldn’t help but think that, just as Jameson was getting used to me, he feared I, too, was abandoning him. The guilt continues today: While my co-workers with kids walk out the door at 6pm, no one seems to care that I also have a child at home waiting for dinner.

Many pet experts agree that new pet owners should try their best to clear their schedule for the first few days following a new animal’s arrival. Not only can pets benefit from the comfort of being cared for by a loving parent after spending time in an animal shelter, but they require attention to be properly housebroken and trained so they don’t become a public nuisance.

It’s clear that spending time with your fur-baby is in the pet’s best interest — but it’s in your employer’s, too.

According to Psychology Today, pet owners have better self-esteem, fitness, sociability and happiness than non-pet owners. They also have lower blood pressure and cholesterol.

Having kids doesn’t improve an employee’s health — which would make them better workers — yet we grant them six weeks off to care for a newborn in the US. Is it so much to ask that pet parents get a week off to do the same?

Originally published as ‘Pet owners deserve family leave too’