Health and Your Pet

You may be doing more for your well being than you realize when you bring a pet into your home.

Here are just a few of the many healthy reasons to have a pet in the family.

• Getting your daily workout can be as easy as taking your dog for a walk through the neighborhood. Let your furry friend lead the way and use a pedometer to track just how many steps you are taking. Depending on your fitness level, experts suggest adding 2,000 steps daily to positively affect your weight and health. (Source: Dr. James O. Hill, Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center)
• After a heart attack, men and women who did not have a dog were six times more likely to have died during the study than those who had a dog. (Source: American Journal of Cardiology)
• In one study, a dog helped lower blood pressure even more than a good friend. (Source: Journal of Personality & Social Psychology)
• Pet parents have an average of 2% lower cholesterol levels than non-pet parents.
• Pet parents have a 4% less chance of having a heart attack, and if a heart attack occurs, a better chance of recovering.
• People recovering from any serious surgery or illness do so faster if they own a pet.
• Pet parents experience fewer feelings of loneliness, reduced depression, lower anxiety levels, raised self-esteem, superior exercise habits, better reactions to stress-inducing situations and an increased desire to interact socially with others.
• Research has concluded that pet parents experience better health than non-pet parents. Over a five-year period, from a pool of 11,000 participants, pet parents made 15%- 20% fewer visits to the doctor annually.
• Children with pets in the family are more confident, have lower heart rates and blood pressure and understand non-verbal communication better than children without pets.
• Pets help improve children's social interaction capability, ability to concentrate, emotional functioning and sense of responsibility. In fact, in a survey done of Fortune 500 CEOs, 95% had grown up with family pets.