Those of us who own pets know they make us happy. But a growing body of scientific research is showing that our pets can also make us healthy, or healthier.
That helps explain the increasing use of animals — dogs and cats mostly, but also birds, fish, and even horses — in settings ranging from hospitals and nursing homes to schools, jails and mental institutions.
Take Viola, or Vi for short. The retired guide dog is the resident canine at the
Children's Inn on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The Inn is where families stay when their children are undergoing experimental therapies at NIH.
Vi, a chunky yellow Labrador retriever with a perpetually wagging tail, greets families as they come downstairs in the morning, as they return from treatment in the afternoon, and can even be "checked out" for a walk around the bucolic NIH grounds.
"There really isn't a day when she doesn't brighten the spirits of a kid at the Inn. And an adult. And a staff member," says Meredith Daly, the Inn's spokeswoman.
But Vi may well be doing more than just bringing smiles to the faces of stressed out parents and children. Dogs like Vi have helped launch an entirely new field of medical research over the past three decades or so.
The use of pets in medical settings actually dates back more than 150 years, says
Aubrey Fine, a clinical psychologist and professor at California State Polytechnic University. "One could even look at Florence Nightingale recognizing that animals provided a level of social support in the institutional care of the mentally ill," says Fine, who has written several books on the human-animal bond.
But it was only in the late 1970s that researchers started to uncover the scientific underpinnings for that bond.
One of the earliest studies, published in 1980, found that
heart attack patients who owned pets lived longer than those who didn't. Another
early study found that petting one's own dog could reduce blood pressure.
More recently, says Rebecca Johnson, a nurse who heads the
Research Center for Human/Animal Interaction at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, studies have been focusing on the fact that interacting with animals can increase people's level of the
hormone oxytocin.
"That is very beneficial for us," says Johnson. "Oxytocin helps us feel happy and trusting." Which, Johnson says, may be one of the ways that humans bond with their animals over time.
But Johnson says it may also have longer-term human health benefits. "Oxytocin has some powerful effects for us in the body's ability to be in a state of readiness to heal, and also to grow new cells, so it predisposes us to an environment in our own bodies where we can be healthier."
Animals can also act as therapists themselves or facilitate therapy – even when they're not dogs or cats. For example, psychologist Aubrey Fine, who works with troubled children, uses dogs in his practice but also a cockatoo and even a bearded dragon named Tweedle.
"One of the things that's always been known is that the animals help a clinician go under the radar of a child's consciousness, because the child is much more at ease and seems to be much more willing to reveal," he says.
Horses have also become popular therapists for people with disabilities.
"The beauty of the horse is that it can be therapeutic in so many different ways," says Breeanna Bornhorst, executive director of the
Northern Virginia Therapeutic Riding Program in Clifton, Va. "Some of our riders might benefit from the connection and the relationship-building with the horse and with their environment. Other riders maybe will benefit physically, from the movements, and build that core strength, and body awareness and muscle memory."
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