Bo, a pooch adopted by the photographer, models a pair of eclipse glasses. While it’s a cute photo op, veterinarians said pets don’t need eclipse glasses to protect their eyes, because they don’t look at the sun.
Mirror photo by Nate Powles
Pet owners have little to worry about during the upcoming solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, according to Lakemont Veterinary Clinic owner and veterinarian Denise Nickodemus.
While their owners are advised to use specialized light-filtering eclipse glasses to protect their vision during the eclipse, housepets such as cats and dogs do not require similar gear.
“They don’t usually look up at the sun much,” Nickodemus said, “so we don’t think there are going to be many potential issues.”
During the eclipse, the sun will be up to 95% occluded by the moon for viewers in Blair County, but even viewers within the path of totality — where they can experience 100% occlusion — should only view the solar phenomenon with either eclipse glasses, telescopes equipped with light filters or pinhole projector boxes, since the risk of permanent eye damage is still present.
The vast majority of pets, Nickodemus said, are unlikely to have the same curiosity about the eclipse, so they are less at risk. Plus, she added, most pets would just shake off the eclipse glasses and wouldn’t benefit from them anyway.
Pet birds and chickens may demonstrate “roosting behavior” during the brief window when the sky darkens during the eclipse, Nickodemus said. This typically results in a few minutes of eerie, unusual silence during the eclipse, since birds stop singing when they roost.
Smaller house pets such as reptiles, amphibians and fish, are not at risk, since they are also unlikely to look up at the eclipse, Nickodemus said.
The only substantial concern, she said, is that dogs who are nervous during thunderstorms and other loud events may experience additional anxiety during the eclipse, since the sudden darkness during totality may seem like a storm is coming.
“Giving them any (anxiety) medication they have for a storm would be an extra precaution,” Nickodemus said.
Livestock owners should have nothing to worry about, Nickodemus said.
“Studies have shown cows may exhibit less grazing behavior during eclipses, but it shouldn’t really affect them — they don’t tend to look up very much,” she said.
Studying behavior
A recent Associated Press article stated that scientists plan to find out how animals react during the eclipse by observing animals at zoos in the path of totality.
Researchers will be at the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas, as they previously detected strange animal behaviors in 2017 at a South Carolina zoo that was in the path of total darkness.
“To our astonishment, most of the animals did surprising things,” said Adam Hartstone-Rose, a North Carolina State University researcher who led the observations published in the journal Animals.
While there are many individual sightings of critters behaving bizarrely during historic eclipses, only in recent years have scientists started to rigorously study the altered behaviors of wild, domestic and zoo animals.
Seven years ago, Galapagos tortoises at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina, “that generally do absolutely nothing all day … during the peak of the eclipse, they all started breeding,” said Hartstone-Rose. The cause of the behavior is still unclear.
A mated pair of Siamangs, gibbons that usually call to each other in the morning, sang unusual tunes during the afternoon eclipse. A few male giraffes began to gallop in “apparent anxiety.” The flamingos huddled around their juveniles.
Researchers say that many animals display behaviors connected with an early dusk.
On Monday, Hartstone-Rose’s team plans to study similar species in Texas to see if the behaviors they witnessed before in South Carolina point to larger patterns.
Several other zoos along the path are also inviting visitors to help track animals, including zoos in Little Rock, Arkansas; Toledo, Ohio; and Indianapolis.
Nate Bickford, an animal researcher at Oregon Institute of Technology, said that “solar eclipses actually mimic short, fast-moving storms,” when skies darken and many animals take shelter.
After the 2017 eclipse, he analyzed data from tracking devices previously placed on wild species to study habitat use. Flying bald eagles change the speed and direction they’re moving during an eclipse, he said. So do feral horses, “probably taking cover, responding to the possibility of a storm out on the open plains.”
Pets should be fine
As for indoor pets, they may react as much to what their owners are doing — whether they’re excited or nonchalant about the eclipse — as to any changes in the sky, said University of Arkansas animal researcher Raffaela Lesch.
“Dogs and cats pay a lot of attention to us, in addition to their internal clocks,” she said.
Jerry Klein, chief veterinary officer for the American Kennel Club, suggests pet owners keep an eye on their pets and look for any signs of stress or anxiety.
“The most obvious sign is your dog running off and hiding somewhere, but look for anything more subtle,” he said on an AKC posting. Other signs of anxiety in dogs include whining, panting, pacing, excessively barking, lip licking or yawning.
Fortunately the eclipse won’t last long, so to relieve your dog’s stress, take them to a quiet room and play calming music, or try distracting them with a quick training session with their favorite treats, he said.
One thing people shouldn’t do is force their pet to experience the eclipse, Klein said.
“Don’t make your dog look at the sun, even with glasses,” he said. “Your dog naturally doesn’t want to look up, and you shouldn’t force him to.”
Klein also said that while it may be a fun photo op to have your dog wear eclipse glasses, “don’t let your dog do something bad, like eat them.”
The Associated Press and the AKC contributed to this report.
