Pets and health

If we tallied up all the pets in Australia, including all the gold fish, hermit crabs, mice, cats and dogs, it’s probable that there are more pets than there are people.
A little like the English and Americans, we Australian’s love our pets. It seems that not only do they love us back, but they’re actually pretty good for our health from a number of different perspectives.
A pet is not a cure for any particular type of disease and we don’t need to see it in medical terms. What we do see, through some studies that have been done more recently, is that in a number of different age groups and for a number of different reasons, people with pets may do better than people who don’t have pets.
In children, it’s been shown that pets seem to lower the effects or the likelihood of allergies. People often immediately think that cat and dog allergies are very common. They’re not actually as common as you would think. It’s usually something that the cat or dog is carrying such as dust or grass. It’s been shown that exposure to pets at a young age seems to lower, rather than increase the incidence.
In teenagers, who can be hard to shift off the couch and away from the Play Station, it’s been shown that teenagers who have a dog are more likely to exercise, and again it makes sense:
“Go out for a walk Johnny?”
“No.”
“How about taking the dog for a walk, Johnny?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Come on Johnny, the dog needs a walk.”
“Oh okay.”
So you can see as to why that might work.
The other interesting thing that has been shown in a couple of other studies is that having a pet can influence the behaviour of children, and this has been looked at with children and teenagers with autism and ADHD. Please do not think to yourself, ‘If I go out and buy a pet, it’s a cure for these problems.’ It isn’t, but studies have shown that pets have a beneficial effect in terms of behaviour. They’re calming. When you sit to pat a cat or a dog, you often feel a little better.  Even when watching a gold fish swim around, it does have a calming effect. We don’t even need medical trials to tell us that these things make sense.
Other research done with adults has shown that people with a pet are more likely to exercise and we know that if we do regular exercise, it’s better for our health for a number of reasons.  So, having a pet, most typically a dog, is good for our health.
It’s also been shown that having a pet seems to lower blood pressure. It is not a treatment so please do NOT stop taking your tablets. What has been shown once again is that having a pet has a calming effect. If we’re feeling calmer and a little better, it’s going to be beneficial for our blood pressure.
In older age groups, a pet can be a very good companion and again, studies are now showing that rates of depression are reduced in older people who do have a pet. It’s nice when studies tell us this but it is pretty intuitive. Having a pet will also help an older person keep active as well so the same benefits for exercise apply for all ages.
Even if we tossed all of that aside and forgot about the studies and medical aspects of it, intuitively, people have tended to domesticate animals for many hundreds and probably thousands of years. We all know that having a pet is a good companion. Some people don’t like having pets and that’s fine. It’s not for 100% of people, but most people do like animals. There’s just something intuitive about it and it makes us feel good. It’s a nice companion to have around the house, whether it’s a cat or a dog or even a goldfish that you can watch swimming in a bowel.
There are some health benefits to pets and there are health studies to back that up. At the end of the day, that’s probably not a reason to go out and buy a pet. A reason to have a pet is because you do like to look after an animal and it’s a nice companion of any description to have around the house.