Pet Perks: Health Benefits of Having a Dog

By Kaitlin Bitz Candelaria | April 25, 2016
benefits of having a dog
Photo by Jesse Schoff
I could tell you all about the benefits of having a dog or any other pet. My pets undeniably make me the happiest person on the planet. They’re fluffy, they love to cuddle and they adore me. But is it possible that they’re actually making me healthier?

The answer is actually, yes. There are many benefits of having a dog, a cat or any other pet in your household.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are actually several ways your furry friends are helping you, some of which may surprise you.

Pet Owners Get More Physical Activity

Photo by Matthew Wiebe

For one, if you have a pet, you’re more likely to engage in outdoor activities and get more exercise. As someone who chases my border collies around the block pretty frequently, I will agree. I would also argue that you spend more time cleaning up torn up tennis balls, clipping nails and picking up heavy bags of food, all of which means more physical activity. And anyone who’s ever washed a dog or a cat can vouch for what a workout that is.

According to the American Psychological Association, pet owners tend to be more physically fit overall than their counterparts.

Pet Owners Have a Healthier Outlook on Life

benefits of having a dog
Photo by Veronika Homchis
Benefits of having a dog — or cat! — don’t just end with being in better shape. There is lots of evidence that having a pet is good for your mental health as well.

Pets help people cope with feelings of uneasiness and loneliness, making them great partners for people who struggle with certain types of mental illnesses like depression and anxiety as well as just normal individuals — who wouldn’t benefit from extra moral support in the form of a furry face and paws?

The American Psychological Association also reports a litany of benefits of having a dog. One excerpt from their study on the positive consequences of owning a pet says,

“Specifically, pet owners had greater self-esteem…tended to be less lonely, were more conscientious, were more extraverted, tended to be less fearful and tended to be less preoccupied than non-owners.”

If that isn’t an argument to go out and purchase or rescue a new best friend, what is?

Animals also tend to lower stress levels — so much so that many college campuses now bring in animals for the students to pet during finals week as a way to blow off steam. Think it sounds crazy? Last fall, Harvard Medical School actually hired a therapy dog to work with their students two days a week on an as-needed basis.

Pet Owners Are Healthier All Around

benefits of having a dog
Photo by Sultan K.
There’s also evidence that suggest that having pets leads to significant health effects like lower blood pressure, better cholesterol and more stable triglyceride levels.

Although those might seem like some abstract health benefits, they can make big impacts on your life.

For example, the study we cited earlier on the positive consequences on owning pets published by the ASA suggests that you are less likely to die within a year of having a heart attack. Medicare patients with dogs tend to see their doctors less and men suffering from HIV with pets struggled less with depression. All of these “benefits” are completely correlational, but give anyone the ability to argue that having a pet is definitely good for your health.

Looking for a way to feel better? We still advise eating healthy and working out regularly, but investing in a furry best friend might just be your next step to a healthier lifestyle.

 

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