In many countries, COVID-19 lockdowns rewrote the rules of social interaction. People who lived alone struggled to combat loneliness. Family members tolerated each other 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no breaks. Argentina was no exception. The lockdown lasted a long time and was particularly strict.

I noticed a common denominator in how people were coping: Pets.

The idea first struck me when I was in Tokyo, covering the Olympics, where I spotted something incredible. A shop charged people for petting random animals. I had heard about animal therapy but this was a new level.

With my colleague Almudena Calatrava, we started developing an idea for a story on all the Argentines who’d decided to adopt new members of the family, or whose relationships with their furry creatures were making lockdowns more bearable.

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Animals do not question you, they don’t ask you to turn down the TV volume. They alleviate anguish. We began looking for cases where animals transformed lives in a mix of situations – all ages and genders.

We also sought diversity in pets. What you might call conventional pets, those aren’t everyone’s choice. We ran into pigs, horses, spiders, sugar gliders, rats as well as dogs and cats. Each story was different, but all had one thing in common: Relationships with these animals made a big difference.

Take Lorena, a woman who lives on her own with 28 pocket-sized marsupials commonly known as sugar gliders. They are like flying squirrels, and we felt surges of adrenaline when they jumped on us. We weren't used to animals suddenly catching our clothes when we least expected it. For the two hours we spent interviewing her and taking photos, we were at high alert.

We learned from Sol that rats are just as expressive as dogs. It had never occurred to me that having rats as the pets you love carries a higher cost. If they escape outside of your four walls, they will most probably not return. Instead they will be killed by a frightened neighbor.

Osvaldo uses tarantulas for his anxiety. He began raising spiders to overcome arachnophobia. Years later, spiders helped him overcome the fear of the virus. Osvaldo is a nurse. When he comes home he needs to slow down and unplug, which he does while watching and sometimes touching the spiders.

A retired adult horse was the best company to seniors in a nursing home who could not be visited by their families.

Chanchi, a pig who was Luciana's gift at age 15, is demanding and he loves to eat. For her owner, he is far from being future ham in the table, but rather an animal that has rescued her during hard times, a loving companion.

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