From my last blog post, it is probably obvious by now that I love dogs (probably a little too much). Last time, I examined whether dogs can understand what we say to them. While sadly most dogs cannot, this doesn’t mean that dogs aren’t man’s best friends. So my new question is: Does owning dogs make people healthier? Without knowing much information, my hypothesis is that dogs do in fact make people healthier. I headed to the Internet to see if anything was consistent with this thought and I was pleasantly surprised to find that many different people researched this as well. Since “health” can get broken down into many different categories, I will also organize it this way.

Mental health: A huge part of our overall health is our mindset. Psychologists at Miami University and St. Louis University discovered that having a pet is similar to human friendship. Pet owners scored higher in categories such as depression, loneliness, illness, self-esteem, and activity levels. Animals probably have the greatest mental health impact on the elderly. Pet owners over the age sixty have lower stress levels, feel less lonely, eat better, and focus more on the present compared to non-pet owners. This is probably due to feeling the responsibility required to take care of an animal.

Real life scenario: A seventy-five year old man loses his wife and now lives by himself for the first time in over fifty years. He feels lonely and seeks companionship. He adopts a dog and now doesn’t feel as lonely. He feels like he has a friend and a reason to keep living.

So what does this mean? The wording above is key. It kept saying animals, not dogs specifically. Right now, there does not seem to be any studies that specifically prove that just dogs improve mental health. Nevertheless, dogs are obviously animals, it would be consistent with these findings that dogs help improve mental health. It just means that cat owners would reap the same benefits as dog owners. Since these are just observational studies and is not just specific to dogs, we cannot say for certain “dogs cause better mental health”. However, the studies seem consistent with the hypothesis so far.

Physical health: Although this has been a question for years, the American Heart Association (AHA) has recently announced that owning a dog likely lowers the risk of heart disease. The AHA cites evidence that dog owners are more likely to be more active have lower blood pressure, and survive a heart attack. A 1995 study looked at 369 people that already had heart disease and a year later looked at the survival rate. Dog owners who already had heart disease were four times more likely to be alive. Cats did nothing to help the survival rate. The AHA released a large statement on their findings over this topic. In the statement, it acknowledged that dogs positively influence physical activity for their owners the most out of any animals. They cited data from an online survey taken by 5,253 Japanese adults. The survey was controlled for age, sex, and socioeconomics and showed that dog owners walked much more and were 54% more likely to reach the recommended amount of physical activity. Studies done in Australia and Canada were consistent with these findings as well. AHA also brought up many studies that showed dog walkers were more likely to be less obese and have lower blood pressure. These results were not automatic just because someone purchased a dog, they had to show desire to improve their lifestyle.

Real life scenario: A slightly obese man, John, purchases a dog for a pet. John wanted to lose weight, but lacked the motivation to do so. Now that he has a dog, he feels more motivated to walk a lot because he feels like it is socially acceptable. Since he walks much more, he loses weight and is at less of a risk for medical problems.

So what does this mean? The physical benefits shown definitely tip the scale more in the favor of dogs improving their owners’ lives. Many studies looked at whether dogs and cats improve physical health, and the results typically came back showing only dogs show major improvement. It is very important to note that owning a dog does not simply improve health. It is the desire to walk the dog and leading a more active lifestyle because of a dog that causes the health benefits such as losing weight and less of a risk of heart disease.

Conclusion: When it comes to mental health, it appears that owning a dog helps a person live a happier life. Due to the sense companionship, dog owners tend to be less depressed and feel less lonely. However, someone could reach the same benefits by owning a cat. A dog is just one of the animals that can lead to better mental health. All of these studies are also observational, meaning that it is just a correlational relationship. We all know by now that correlation does not equal causation. All of the information we have learned does not rule out my original hypothesis that dogs make people healthier. We just need to conduct studies to definitively say that dogs cause better mental health for the owners. The physical health benefits seem much more in the dogs’ favors. Since owning a dog typically leads to a more active lifestyle, owners can enjoy many benefits such as less of a chance of heart disease, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of obesity. Owners must be committed to walking their dogs to enjoy these benefits. As Dr. Levine, a doctor at the Baylor College of Medicine, explained, “We don’t want people to go out and adopt a dog or a cat and then sit on the couch eating potato chips and smoking a cigarette and assume they are now going to live longer.”  Once again, these studies are simply correlational, so we cannot assume causation. The main issue with this conclusion is reverse causation. While we are starting to believe that owning a dog leads to healthier people, we still cannot rule out that it is actually just healthier people are more likely to own dogs. Verdict: Owning a dog will not hurt your health. Many studies show that dogs will improve your health, but we cannot definitely declare causation at this point in time.