You will be surprised to know that animals have a pleasant impact on human health. If you are feeling dizzy and alone, spend some time with your pets. Most of the people in the world, including me, love to keep pets, especially dogs. But don’t you know whether keeping a dog is healthy or not?
When you add a dog in your family, you must be aware of the positive and negative impacts on your health. If you are a dog lover, your heart feels full of joy, after knowing that keeping a dog has many benefits on your health. I have read lots of times, how dogs improve your health. The benefits of spending time with dogs is the best way to relieve stress and anxiety.
This is how dogs improve your health. If you have a dog, you don’t need more friends. Dogs are human-friendly creatures. By playing with them, you will forget your work pressure and tensions. Outdoor games with dogs keep your body energetic. Dogs can understand our words, emotions, gestures, and body language. Let’s have some more interesting and knowledgeable discussion on the impact of dogs on our health.
How Dogs Improve Your Health
Before getting a pet (dog) at our home, we wonder if it will be harmful to our family. But you can’t even imagine how dogs improve our health. Dogs are the human’s faithful and loyal friends. Whenever you are in danger in front of your dog, they help you without thinking about themselves at once. More healthy benefits to keep dogs are;
Physical Activity
As you know physical activity is beneficial for every human being. Physical activity with your doggie is one of the best ways to keep you and your pet fit. There are lots of physical activities you can do with your pet and have quality time. You can train a dog as your workout partner. So, you can see how dogs improve your health.
If you are suffering from obesity (overweight), physical activity with dogs helps you to achieve your healthy body goal. Along with benefits on your health, physical activity makes your pet healthy as well.
Jog, Walk, and Run
Dogs are known as fast learners. You can train him to do jogging, walking and running with you. Remember that, in starting, walking or jogging for 20 minutes is enough. Excess of physical activity will be harmful for human beings and dogs as well. Outdoor workout time makes your bond stronger Once you train your pet, he will start waiting for you regularly. It will be a great feeling of joy for you.
Stress Reduction
Do you want to reduce your work stress level? Spend some time with your dogs. I have studied many times that keeping a dog in your home helps to release work stress. Touching, feeling, and playing with dogs, makes you calm and balanced. Whenever you are feeling alone and depressed, your dog provides you with support.
Pets are able to understand your gestures, they can understand your feelings and tensions and try to make your mood better, by doing little things for you, forcing you to play with them, start walking toward you. When you get a dog then you realize how dogs improve your health and make you happy.
Mood Enhancement
Dogs have a super natural power to enhance their owner’s mood, making you feel happy and joyful. When your body goes through some chemical changes, because of your bad mood. A dog has the ability to better your mood, and calm your hormones which makes you angry and sad. When he sees you in a bad mood, he will do little naughty things to cheer you up.
Social Interaction
Having a dog pet makes you feel more energetic and active. It helps you a lot in social interaction with others. Spending a good time with your dog has many benefits. After a tired day, when you don’t want to interact with anyone. Your dogs make you feel light. Companionship with dogs encourages you to be positive and kind, makes your conversation initiative, and makes you feel happier and joy in front of others.
Heart Health
In this era, heart disease is becoming more common day by day. Every age group of people have cardiological disease, which can cause death. There are many ways how dogs improve your heart health.
Keeping Dogs plays a major role in maintaining human heart disease. If anyone has some kind of heart disease, give him a puppy. Stroking a dog can maintain your blood pressure and protect you from heart disease. The emotional and moral support of pets is beneficial for this owner’s heart condition.
Allergy And Immune System Development
It’s another benefit of how dogs improve your health and family as well. Dogs really very helpful to make your immune system stronger. Having a dog and child together develops the strongest immune system for your kids and helps them to fight allergies. People who don’t have dogs or any pets in their home, get more infected from allergies. The strongest immune system makes you fight against egg, meat, and wheat allergies.
Improved Mental Function
A doctor named ‘Dr Manno’ said that ‘if a person is facing some kind of health issue. keep a dog at your home. He will encourage you to do outdoor walks and fulfill your need for a friend. Dogs love unconditionally. Study shows that if you are facing anxiety or loneliness, your pet helps you to overcome this mental condition
Sense Of Purpose
Being with a dog makes you responsible. Getting a dog in your home makes you realize that someone exists in your place waiting for you to get him fed, play with him, and take care of him. A sense of purpose automatically develops in you that someone depends on you and wants your time and care.
Improved Sleep
Dogs contain a good chemical called oxytocin, a natural depression-fighting chemical. Releases of oxytocin make the healthiest theta brainwaves. It decreases your depression and stress levels. Sleeping with your dog provides you a security and comfort. It reduces your anxiety and provides you with a peaceful sleep.
The Benefits Of Pets For Older Adults (Seniors)
We already discussed how dogs improve your health. We have a positive impact of having pets in our home. lots of benefits, we get for our older adults who live their entire lives for us. At their older age, they need a companion, a good friend.
A pet is a man’s best friend. Having a pet has many benefits for older adults as well. A pet always feels needy about its owner, this makes older adults happy. With their dogs they enjoy outdoor exercises, and healthy walks decrease blood pressure. The time they spend outside from home, they can interact with new people, increase social interaction, make new friends, and help them to release stress and anxiety.
Companionship
Pets are the best companions in every stage of life. For older adults, pets are like their own child, with whom they can spend more time, talk and play with them, and walk and sleep with them. companionship with a pet makes them more energetic and active. When they were feeling alone and sad, they started feeling happy, and laughing loudly which made them physically fit as well.
Routine And Responsibility
At an older age, humans become careless for themselves as well as everyone else. Keeping a pet in your home is a big responsibility. When an older adult has pets as their companion, they become responsible. The pets need feeding, walking, play, first aid and proper care in a regular routine. Our older adults have to set their routine for their pets and have to do all these chores with responsibility.
Sense Of Security
There are lots of examples that how pets help humans physically. Many times we hear that dogs save their owners or their children. Animals especially dogs have an extraordinary sense of smell. They can also feel danger, which makes the owner feel protected. Even if you sleep with your dog, you will feel a good sense of security and can take restful sleep. Look, how dogs improve your health at every stage of life.
Purposeful Living
How dogs improve our health when we are young but When we get older, we start feeling alone and unneeded. Pet ownership has a significant benefit for our senior citizens. Sometimes pets find a new activity by themself, which they want to play with their owners. They get more enjoyment and purposeful living with each other and reduce loneliness.
The Benefits Of Pets For Children
As you know we discussed how dogs improve your health and older adults. We also have lots of benefits of pets for children as well. In the world, 90% of the population consider pets as a family member. Having a newborn or toddler in your family along with your pets makes a strong bond. They play together, laugh together, learn together and grow up together.
Children who grow up with pets are fast learners. They become confident.
Emotional Support
Childrens with pets are emotionally strong. They know how to take care of pets, they grow up as caring humans, and learn how patiently we have to be with others. Relationships with pets build a child’s confidence and emotional esteem.
Responsibility And Empathy
As we know, the animals we keep as our pets all depend on us. Children who grow up with pets are responsible from an early age. When they were only 3 or 4 years old, they started learning how to take care of pets. The feelings of empathy and love develop in their hearts. It also helps children to be good human beings.
Social Skills
You remember when you were a child, you were afraid to communicate with others. Common reasons are, people from outside making fun, bullying, and laughing at you. This is a really little matter, but for a child, it’s a really big problem that makes him under confident.
According to the studies, children who have pets in their homes are basically confident. Pets enhance the social skills of children. They have a strong power of communication and socializing with others. They spend their time with pets in non verbal communication. They become capable of solving their problems. They are familiar with taking care of others. They are always ready to help anyone.
Learning Opportunities
Children who spend time with pets have more opportunities to learn and explore new things. They are sharp-minded. Pets are also called ‘good teachers’ for children. Children who own pets are more respectable and understanding to others. They know, when someone needs anything, how to provide it. How to make it possible. They are able to face difficult things.
Better Health
We have already learned many things about how dogs improve your health. But pets are also beneficial for our children’s health. When a child is with pets, they are in constant contact with pathogenic microbes, which helps to improve the immune system. Being with pets, they become emotionally strong and more active than others.
Therapeutic Benefits
We learn lots of physical benefits of having a pet. There are lots of medical benefits as well. Pets have more power and ability to spread positive vibes. Shown in a study that ‘pets can decrease cortisol level’ (which are stress relieving hormones).
How Pets Helps Adults With Alzheimer’s Disease And Dementia
Dementia is a disease, that commonly affects older adults, it badly affects thinking, memory, and ability to do activities. Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia. Unconditional love and companionship are most beneficial for adults. Pets never judge humans, they give love without any purpose..
When an adult has a pet with him. He started spending time, playing, cuddling, doing physical activities, and exploring new things with them. He cares for the pet, gets them fed when they need it, and washes and takes care of them. These all activities help him to overcome his ALzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Tips For Playing With Your Dogs
Playing different kinds of games with your dogs, helps you to know your pet personally. It strengthens your bond. You can play many games with dogs. Firstly, try to observe which kind of games they enjoy the most. You can spend quality time with your dogs by playing games. There are some tips for games are;
Choose Safe And Engaging Toys
Toys are really a good activity to provide your dogs. Toys are not luxury, it is necessary for them. Always choose a safe toy, that is short from their size. Large toys encourage them to jump which is dangerous for pets. Give them different toys, and see which kind of toys they liked most.
Set Aside Dedicated Playtime
As per studies, we get to know that pets also feel stress. Playing at a specific time gives them relief. Set a time and dedicate it to your dogs. Pets are hungry for love and attention.
Use Interactive Toys And Games
Lots of toys are available in the market for pets. Give them multiple toys and see his behavior, which one he loves to play. Challenge sliders and heartbeat toys are the toys that pets mostly love.
You can make some games like, taking a water bottle, and add some stones in it. Give it to your pet. It will be an engaging game. Your pet friend loves to play with it.
Incorporate Training Into Play
Best way to train your dog,in a controlled environment, like a dog training school and center. You can also train them to play games like ‘chase ball’ , ‘tug of war’ and chase.
Be Mindful Of Your Dog’s Energy Level
Playing and outing with your dog is really beneficial for your pet and yourself as well. Always keep an eye on the dog’s energy level, if he has a higher level of energy, provide them with activities according to his needs. But if he doesn’t have a higher energy level, provide light games to him. Excess of physical activity can be harmful for him.
Respect Your Dog Boundaries
Dogs can seek knowledge. Understand your body language. He learns quickly. Try to give him a boundary for him, so he will be able to know that he has to be in their home. Pets have their personal boundaries too. You have to be respectful for that. It makes your dog more confident and makes your bond stronger with them.
Rotate Toys To Keep Things Excited
Every week, rotate your dog’s toys to one another. Playing with similar toys provides him with boredom. He got fed up with similar games and toys and became lazy. Rotate the toys to make him excited and cherish them.
Make Time For Interactive Play
Dogs are in love to explore new games to play. They get fed up with their previous toys and play early and start to behave weird. You have to make specific time for interactive play with them. You can also provide toys to interact with him like fetch toys, scentwork toys, puzzle toys and many more.
FAQs
How does having a dog change your life?
Dogs can change your life completely. It is like having a friend for a lifetime. He improves your mental and physical health.
Why do dogs care about humans?
Every human has ‘love hormone’ called ‘oxytocin’. When hormones interact with each other. Love and care develop in the heart naturally;
What do animals do to help humans?
Animals always help humans in different ways. Such as; we get milk from mammals, and eat meat from animals. The medicines we use in our daily life are first tested on animals.
Is having a dog good for a child?
Yes, it’s very helpful. Children who grow up with dogs are super active, more communicative, and provide a helping hand to others.
What has a dog taught me?
Dogs teach me to feel free. Don’t stress about your future, live and enjoy your present, and love others without any purpose.
Summary
We already discussed How dogs improve your health in every stage of life. Dog owners have several benefits. He gets more active and physically fit. Dogs help us to reduce anxiety and provide the best companionship. Dog owners get many heart benefits.
Spending time with pets provides you comfort and releases stress. It also helps you with dementia. Dogs are also beneficial for children and adults. Pets provide children confidence, enhance their communication skills, and make them responsible and more interactive. In need of a friend, dogs are the best companions. Dogs provide them a great sense of responsibility and purposeful living.
References:
- https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/mood-boosting-power-of-dogs.htm
- https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/dog-walking-the-health-benefits
- https://newsroom.cigna.com/unexpected-health-benefits-of-pets-for-older-americans
