Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, things that may be labelled as everyday activities are now rare. With more free time away from school due to online learning, comes more responsibilities and less time to spend with family and friends. Personally, I’ve decided to dedicate almost all of my free time to strengthening my body through basketball or through the gym. This schedule accompanied by the hours I must put into school work each day makes it somewhat difficult for me to connect with my family.

At the end of February, my parents decided to take a weekend off to go down south to Galle. Unfortunately, I was left behind and was tasked with taking care of the house. A long with taking care of the house, comes the responsibility of taking care of Coco, our dog. So, for the first time in at least 3 years, I decided to take her on her morning walks while my parents were gone. Usually it is my Dad who takes her on her walks so it took a couple minutes of adjusting for her to get used to my pace. I walked her for around 30 minutes and let her sniff freely at all of the mysterious plants by the front doors of people’s houses.

LO7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

I became somewhat more familiar with the neighborhood as I decided to walk down side roads that I have never been on before which gave me a better sense of the area that I live in. I also learned a lot about Coco while walking her. I learned that she gets quite aggressive when she sees another dog on a leash but is very happy to interact with dogs that aren’t on leashes (street dogs). I don’t understand why this is, but I have a feeling that it’s due to her lack of exposure to other pets.

While walking down one of the side roads, we saw a small male street dog. It had white fur and seemed very excited to see us. I was a little skeptical at first as Coco was just barking at two other dogs on leashes but I decided to give this dog a chance. They turned out to have very innocent interactions with minimal growling which made me extremely happy.

This learning objective was met as I decided to take time out of my day to make Coco’s day better. I did this with the knowledge that it is obligatory to expose your dog to world outside the confines of your house at least once a day.

In sum, I walked Coco as a service to my family as they were not able to do so for the weekend. Although, while walking Coco I also learned a lot about her interactions with other dogs and got a better sense of the neighborhood.

Supervisor: Andrew Hurd