Why owning a dog is so good for your health.
There are so many benefits to owning a pet, especially the kind that barks and wags its tail. In spite of the cleaning, the feeding and the training involved, we still love a friendly hound. And there are several reasons why this is a good thing.
Owning a canine companion is linked to lower blood pressure, and there’s the advantage of the stress relief that comes with having a best friend around you when you need one.
It’s also been shown that dog owners are more active – whether they like it or not. But guess what? Most of them they like it. A dog owner will take more steps per day, and move more than someone who shares their home with cats, goldfish, parrots or pet tarantulas. (But we like these pets too, they’re also therapeutic in their own special ways, pet spiders included.)
Recent studies showed that dog walkers got about 12 more minutes of activity on the wettest days than the dog-less people got on the driest days.
And dogs are great for older people too. who take 2,760 more steps per day on average compared to non-owners, which amounts to an additional 23 daily minutes of moderate exercise. Want to live long enough to have great grandchildren? Get a puppy.
Want to live long enough to have great grandchildren?
Get a puppy.
On the other end of the age spectrum, some interesting studies have revealed that children who are exposed to dogs or cats as babies are less susceptible to allergies.
But we also have scientific evidence that owning a dog or having a pet is good for our mental health, even for people who have challenging disorders.
For a start, owning a dog gets you outside, and into the sun for some Vitamin D, which is definitely a mood enhancer. And the exercise lifts your mood, too.
The positive benefits are so impressive that hospitals and clinics now use pet therapy along with regular medicine. Animals like dogs were always a big no-no in a hospital, but many hospitals allow dogs and other animals as therapy.
It’s clear that social support, which is always a good treatment for anxiety depression or loneliness, can often come from the animals we love. They help calm fear and anxiety in humans, which is yet another reason we owe them, and ourselves, a good walkies every day.
