Life without dogs… We don’t think so!
We all know how cute dogs are and how much fun they are to play with. But they also eat a lot, poop a lot and get into all kinds of mischief. They are expensive, and require a lot of time and attention. So do you really need a four-legged friend? YES, you do! And here are the Top 10 reasons why you need a dog to jazz up your life:
1. Dogs increase your mood dramatically!
Spending just 15-30 minutes with your dog can help you feel more calm and relaxed, reducing stress and increasing happiness. Playing with your pup increases your brain’s levels of dopamine and serotonin, both of which are neurotransmitters associated with pleasure and tranquility. So the next time you’re feeling down, grab a toy and spend some time with your pup! That wagging tail will be sure to put a smile on your face.
2. Humans with dogs recover more quickly from illnesses.
Dog owners have a much higher rate of recovery from being sick than non-dog owners. In fact, humans with pooches who suffer from heart attacks are twice as likely to fully recover as those without! So start cuddling your dog!
3. Having a dog improves your physical well-being and encourages a healthy fitness.
Of course! Your dog requires daily exercise, and so do you! Dog owners carry the responsibility of playing with and working their dogs, so it only makes sense that dog people tend to be more active.
4. Dogs help increase social interactions.
Not only do dogs need care and playtime with their humans, but they need time to socialise with other pups too! This means that their humans will have a chance to socialise while they oversee the puppy playdates. Even going on a walk in the neighborhood can bring many new friends around and start many conversations!
5. Having a dog makes YOU more awesome!
The responsibility, patience, selflessness, and commitment that come with having a dog make us stronger, all-around better people.
6. Owning a dog could make you more attractive to potential love matches.
According to a study conducted by Dog’s Trust, out of 700 surveyed people, 60 percent said that owning a dog can make others more attractive, while 85 percent think people are more approachable when they are with a dog.
7. Because they live to protect their little mates!
And children can learn a lot of their fur friends! Remembering to feed, provide water, and clean up after a dog can give children a sense of importance and satisfaction.
Dogs also teach children about socialisation. Like most of us, dogs are social animals who enjoy and need attention and affection. By learning how to interact with a dog, children can learn how to better socialise with new faces and other children.
8. Because they give the best kisses
Cold and damp… But still so cute! Your dog licking your face is a sign of affection and respect – communicating that Fido acknowledges you as the dominant pack leader.
Pups also use licking when curious about how you are feeling. Dogs have special receptors in their nose and mouth which they use to process and interpret the scented molecules found in human sweat. By licking your face, your dog may be able to determine whether you are happy or feeling stressed. And sometimes a human just tastes good!
The act of licking also releases pleasurable endorphins in dogs and often gives them a sense of comfort and security. Your dog may lick your face simply because it feels good (and we like it too)!
9. They are a reflection of your personality!
The kind of dog you have tells people a lot about your personality. A study in England found a very clear correlation between people’s personalities and what type of dogs they owned. For example, people who owned toy dogs tended to be more intelligent, while owners of utility dogs like Dalmatians and bulldogs were the most conscientious. But be careful: Dogs also take on their owners’ personality traits, so if you fly off the handle all the time, your pooch may wind up with aggressive tendencies.
10. Do we need to say more?
Physical Health Benefits of a Pup
It’s no secret that people love being around dogs, and it turns out our bodies do too. Take a look at these paw-sitively amazing physical health benefits of owning a dog:
Dogs help you stay active
Man’s best friend often needs to run and play in order to stay healthy and active, requiring dog owners to engage in at least some sort of physical activity with them. Even if you don’t consider physical activity with your dog as proper exercise, you can still count this leisure time as a health benefit. A study in Western Canada found that men and women who took their canine companion out regularly engaged in roughly 300 minutes of walking per week compared to non-dog owners who only exercised half as much.
Playing fetch with your dog using a stick or a ball can even be enough to improve your heart rate and help to burn a few calories. Overall, many people who own a dog note that it’s helped them to spend more time outside and even lose some weight. Even if you aren’t trying to make changes to your physique, regular cardiovascular activity can help you to have more energy and improve your overall health and wellness. If you can’t own a dog, you can still reap these health benefits (and make money) by becoming a dog walker or volunteering at a boarding kennel or shelter.
Why did no one tell me that having a dog is so fun
Snuggling next to my kitties while their furry chests softly rumble is a proven antidote to the day’s stress.
As they woof that down, take a moment to reflect on all that your dog brings to you. Perhaps it is you, dear owner, who is getting the treat – the gift of good health.
A 2019 analysis of nearly 4 million people in the United States, Canada, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom found dog ownership was associated with a 24% reduction in dying early from any cause. If the person had already suffered a heart attack or stroke, having a dog was even more beneficial; they were 31% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease.
The study has been criticized for not controlling for other diseases, social economic status and other factors that might confound the results.
Still, another large study published around the same time found people who owned dogs had better health outcomes after suffering a major cardiovascular event such as heart attack or stroke.
The benefit was highest for dog owners who lived alone. Heart attack survivors living alone who owned dogs had a 33% lower risk of death compared to survivors who did not own a dog. Stroke survivors living alone with a dog had a 27% reduced risk of death.
The American Heart Association lists a reduction in diabetes to the list of health benefits of dog ownership. “People who walk their dogs regularly face one-third the risk of diabetes of those who don’t own a dog,” the AHA said.
In addition, owning a dog (or other pet) may provide important social and emotional support and is a “powerful predictor of behavior changes that can lead to weight loss,” the AHA said.
Of course these cardio benefits are just for dogs – not cats, horses, gerbils and the like. Many suggest its the potential exposure to exercise that explains the benefit: The AHA points to studies that found pet owners who walk their dogs got up to 30 minutes more exercise a day than non-dog-walkers.
But in a previous interview with CNN, Dr. Martha Gulati, who is the editor-in-chief of CardioSmart.org, the American College of Cardiology’s patient education platform, said the jury was still out on why.
“Is it the dog or is it the behaviors?” Gulati asked. “Is it because you’re exercising or is it because there is a difference in the type of person who would choose to have a dog versus somebody who would not? Are they healthier or wealthier? We don’t know those things.”
Still, while “non-randomized studies cannot ‘prove’ that adopting or owning a dog directly leads to reduced mortality, these robust findings are certainly at least suggestive of this,” Dr. Glenn Levine, chair of the writing group of the American Heart Association’s scientific statement on pet ownership, told CNN in a previous interview.
The American Heart Association suggest various ways to get active with your dog in tow:
However, the AHA also cautions that pet ownership is a caring commitment that comes with certain financial costs and responsibilities, so “the primary purpose of adopting, rescuing, or purchasing a pet” should not be to reduce cardiovascular risk.
For me and millions more, having a pet brings a circle of love into our lives – they give affection, we give it back and all of us are the better for it.
“I have a list of 10 health benefits [that] studies have shown pet owners have,” said psychologist Harold Herzog, a pet-loving professor at Western Carolina University who has long studied the human-animal connection.
“Higher survival rates, fewer heart attacks, less loneliness, better blood pressure, better psychological well-being, lower rates of depression and stress levels, fewer doctor visits, increased self esteem, better sleep and more physical activity,” are just some of the recorded benefits of pet ownership, Herzog said.
Herzog also points to studies that found pet owners “are more likely to be lonely, depressed and have panic attacks, more likely to have asthma, obesity, high blood pressure, gastric ulcers, migraine headaches, and use more medicine, et cetera.”
As often occurs in science, studies have had mixed results. Some research shows benefits to having a pet, other studies say there’s no difference between the health of those who do and don’t own pets. Still more research suggests there could even be negatives about pet ownership (and we don’t just mean picking up poop from the yard).
That’s right. Despite the fact we’re convinced of the blessings our fur babies bring to our lives, science has yet to definitively prove that pets are good for our health.
“We’re finding is it is a little bit more complicated than we originally thought,” she added.”I always say that it’s not a great question: ‘Are our pets good for us?’
“It’s who are pets good for, under what circumstances, and is it the right match between the person and the pet?”
Pet owners certainly believe their pets provide emotional support, especially during times of stress, Mueller said, and thankfully science appears to back that up.
“There’s some research that shows having a pet with you during an anxious event could help reduce the stress of that event,” she said.
“Studies have shown repeatedly that people’s good mood increases and bad mood decreases around pets,” Herzog said. “And so we know that there’s immediate short term benefits, physiological and psychological, with interacting with pets. I have no doubt about that.”
Herzog pulled 30 studies on the topic: Eighteen showed no difference in depression rates between people with pets and those without; five concluded having a pet eased depressive symptoms; five found pets made depression worse; and the rest were inconclusive.
One study of the elderly that Mueller conducted found pet owners were about twice as likely to have had depression in the past – but reported no depression in the last week. Did they get a pet and then get depressed or did the pet help end the depression? It’s not clear.
One of the reasons science is so iffy on the subject of pets and our health is that it’s nearly impossible to conduct the “gold standard” of studies: a randomized controlled trial where the researcher controls all factors and then randomly assigns a pet to the test group.
“It’s really difficult to do randomized studies because mostly people want to choose whether or not they get a pet and choose who their pets are,” Mueller said.
Backed by a 9 million dollar partnership between the US National Institute of Health’s Child Development and Behavior Branch and the UK’s Waltham Petcare Science Institute, some researchers have begun designing better studies to determine if it’s the animals who have the impact.
A 2015 study found children with ADHD who read to real animals showed more improvements in sharing, cooperation, volunteering and behavioral problems than ADHD children who read to a stuffed animal. Another study found autistic children were calmer and interacted more when in the presence of guinea pigs than toys.
A four-month-long randomized study (PDF) done at Vanderbilt University in Nashville provided children access to therapy dogs just before undergoing cancer treatment. All of the kids enjoyed it, but there wasn’t a drop in anxiety levels between the children in the test group and those in the control group.
The parents of the children who had therapy dogs, however, showed a significant drop in parenting anxiety over their child’s pain and ability to cope.
Another research method being used, said Mueller, are longitudinal studies, in which huge numbers of people are followed over long periods of time. The hope is that these studies, and the more scientifically designed experiments, will tease out more precise reasons for why a particular pet might – or might not – be a good fit for a person and their needs.
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One day, Mueller says, it might be possible to ‘prescribe’ a dog for a young active child, a troubled adolescent or cardiovascular patient and know – as much as science can ever know – what the outcome is likely to be for their health.
Maybe we’ll finally have data to put behind the “cat vs. dog” debate, or just how and why a bird, fish, lizard or gerbil might soothe our stress and provide companionship.
Until then, fellow pet lovers, I intend to go back to what I intuitively know: my pets are some of the most loving “people” in my life, and that, if nothing else, makes them good for me. Ad Feedback Ad Feedback Ad Feedback