New sounds of a puppy’s yapping and high pitched cries of a kitten in the early hours filled the monotonous mornings of Coronavirus isolation for many students stuck at home. With extended weeks off, the time was ideal for the big commitment – pet adoption.

“The craziness of training a puppy definitely gave us something to do instead of just sit around our house during quarantine,” senior Maisie Thompson said. “It was a sad time for a lot of reasons, but our new puppy Ty makes us super happy.”

Pets take time to train, and quarantine offered plenty of hours for many to teach their newly adopted animals.

“Since we were home all the time, it made potty training him and teaching him things like how to sit, fetch, shake, and, most importantly, sleep through the night a lot easier,” Thompson said.

In addition to helping pass the hours stuck at home, a new animal offered replacement social interaction to fill the gaps left by canceled school.

“We adopted a pet because I wanted to have someone to play or spend time with like I would normally with my friends,” freshman Jacob Matthews said. “He [my dog] is playful, fast, and fun to spend around.”

According to a TIME Magazine survey, around 75% of teenagers classified as Gen Z reported often or sometimes feeling loneliness such as this because of the pandemic; however, pets helped students combat these feelings.

“My new dog Copper comes and lays on my bed and cuddles with me,” sophomore Morgan Betts said. “It makes me feel much happier and calmer.”

Carrying out responsibilities associated with pets created new healthy habits as well.

“We’ve been going out more to walk Copper,” Betts said. “He is extremely rowdy and very adorable but having an excuse to just walk outside every day really helps.”

It’s not only dogs that offered comfort during the days of social isolation, freshman Emily Boaz bought frogs and freshman Jeanelle Makdissi adopted a Quaker Parrot since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic.

“He is basically a flying pit bull with a toddler complex, but he’s adorable,” Makdissi said. “I had been planning to get a bird, and since I had a lot of time during quarantine, it seemed like the right time to get one.”

According to the Houston Chronicle, these students weren’t alone in choosing this time to add new pets to their families. The Harris County Animal Shelter has faced an influx of foster and adoption applications in the past few months.

Due to the pandemic, people looking to adopt animals faced new challenges. Adoption centers implemented regulations like limited opportunities for face-to-face interaction and a renewed focus on online availability catalogs to comply with social distancing rulings.

Despite these new steps in the adoption process, students seemed to share a similar outlook on what their pets have brought to the novel summer of 2020.

“I’m really happy we managed to find Ty,” Thompson said. “Getting a puppy made an otherwise boring summer totally great.”