Dogs: A Prescription for Well-being
In May of 2017, my family adopted a highly traumatized dog from a local shelter. Daisy had been dropped off at a shelter in Louisiana along with her 10 puppies; they were all brought up to Massachusetts by a local rescue agency. After weaning, her puppies were all promptly adopted. But Daisy sat, unwanted, for months. And that story tugged at my heart strings — and led me to convince my husband to at least go take a look at her.
Upon meeting her, it wasn’t hard to imagine why she was a hard sell to prospective adopters. She refused to walk out of her small space at the shelter; my husband had to carry her to our car, as she wouldn’t walk on a leash. She was terrified of everything — people, dogs, hats, garbage cans, the vacuum cleaner, the mailbox, umbrellas, basketballs, the kitchen, and so on. Daisy’s body gave us some insight into why she was so fearful of the world: the long jagged scars on her legs she’d clearly licked to heal and the small round scars on her back, likely from BB guns.
But despite all her trauma, Daisy had a wonderful spirit, and over time, she learned how to be a dog: how to take long walks on a leash, shake paws to get a treat, and bark vigorously at UPS trucks. Over the last five years, she’s brought our family tremendous joy (as I’ve regularly documented on my Instagram account). My husband and I both regularly describe Daisy as “my best friend.”
Our experience of the joys of dog ownership is, of course, not unusual, as pet owners know well. And it’s not just that dogs make us feel good — empirical research demonstrates that pets can lead to greater psychological and physical well-being. During stressful situations, the presence of a pet decreases our body’s natural physiological reaction and lowers both blood pressure and heart rate. Pets help buffer the negative effects of stressful life experiences, such as coping with a chronic or terminal disease. These findings about the benefits of dogs for reducing stress led to perhaps my greatest contribution as a professor: once a week, I bring my dog to office hours!
Owning a dog also reduces loneliness. Why? Perhaps because dogs provide absolute and unconditional love. As Nora Ephron so eloquently put it, “When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.” (As the parent of two young adults and a teenager, this sentence certainly rings true.)
Most importantly, dog owners even live longer. A worldwide study of over 3 million people found that dog owners had a 24% reduction in risk of dying (and a 31% decrease for those who had already had a heart attack or stroke). Dog owners also have better health outcomes after suffering a major cardiovascular event than those without dogs (and the benefits are particularly strong for people who live alone).
I’m writing this piece on a terribly hard day: this morning we learned that Daisy has bone cancer. It’s not treatable and she’s in pain, so tonight, we’re saying our goodbyes and kissing her head through our tears. This is by far the hardest part of owning a dog — and yet even now, I feel so thankful for the time we spent with her. And I’m keeping in mind these words from Winnie the Pooh: “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”