Besides the obvious things such as exercising (I do forest runs)/ walking more regularly and often, a dog has had a calming and stress reducing effect on me I'd never have imagined possible.
I have ADHD and besides the impulsivity that comes with it, it was untreated until after I adopted my dog. Even prior to diagnosis, having a mammal besides you that you cannot talk to, but that is very reactive to your emotions has calmed me down significantly.
I experienced I can only interact calmly and trusting with my dog if I am, in fact, doing so being calm and trusting myself.
Also, dogs are amazing at executive functioning. They don't fret past mistakes, they try again. Seeing it physically in front of you every other day puts me in a different mental spot. Can't be depressed if I see it's possible.
And last but not least, I've never had so many positive random interactions with strangers ever in my entire adult life.
Both me approaching others when my dog is with me or being approached.
People just don't read you as a creep or threat if you present yourself as being able to interact well with a dog.
I have had fish and ants before, the mental and social effects don't ever compare.
Highly recommend adopting a dog if you're so inclined.
It's awesome.
>Both me approaching others when my dog is with me or being approached.
That's great. But to others considering a dog... be aware that the opposite can be true also.
My dog is not friendly to strangers, so we have to take extra steps to avoid contact with them when we go out. I love the dog, but I feel like I'm missing out on random interactions with my community that used to happen on occasion.
You don’t talk to your dog?
But for the purpose of say me wanting my dog to show a certain behavior or perform an action.
I can’t explain it in human terms.
Talking works if I have previously taught my dog my desired outcome in ways the dog understands.
So in order to be able to speak, you first need to learn how to think like a dog and break a certain outcome down into intermediate smaller learning steps.
It’s kinda similar to programming, but in the context of bringing emotions into the mix (how do I teach calmly, and handle when my dog cannot immediately follow my instructions), it has made me incredibly more empathic.
Intuitively, I do believe that being forced to walk a dog every day when you might not have otherwise exercised, will come with health benefits. And it does not seem implausible for their findings to be true. But did they actually prove anything here?
The caption for each figure should completely describe the information being shown. In this case, they have a Time axis with numbers but no indication of what units of time are being represented, or what is meant by time '0'.
The real conclusions are in Table 2. "Pet ownership" is barely "statistically significant" (yeah, I know...) there. Tables 3, 4, and 5 should be similar but as a whole things are kind of all over the place.
It's not a strong paper.
Let’s make an arbitrary example. Say a study is designed to measure the difference in lifespan between group A (water drinkers) and group B (coffee drinkers). Imagine there is a true difference in lifespan (say, 87.8yr vs 87.9yr) and the study is powered to observe a statistical difference.
Now imagine plotting the average lifespans between the two groups.
If the scale starts at 0 and ends at 100, the difference would be imperceptible.
But if the scale is shown on a range of 87.6-88.0yr, with breaks of 0.05yr, the difference between the groups would appear quite large. This Y axis scale is shifting your frame of reference to potentially think the difference is bigger than it actually is.
Maybe that 0.1yr is meaningful for some contexts or opinions, but maybe it’s not. This is why reading the units on an axis is very important: so we’re not mislead by the visual difference between two group values.
because i think the graph makes complete sense by checking the methodology... which i'll save your time: 18 years and ~ 16,000 participants
It is harder to take them outside for a walk though (although there are bird leashes). This sort of limits the outdoor social interaction that dogs confer.
and yes, some smaller birds are treated more like fish that a member of the family.
With dog you have to walk outside even if you have a garden, a dog needs a daily walk a bit further around.
Cat doesn’t need a walk, well it requires play time but I would say walking around the block should do more for person health than playing around with cat in-house.
I ask because people are often surprised at how social cats are. Sure, some are extroverts and just love everyone like any golden retriever would. But most cats will want to be in the same room if you even if they aren't cuddly (all the time). They greet you at the door and like to play with you. They're just introverted and need time to warm up
I've had cats that were affectionate and cats that came to the house only for food.
The overall problem with this study is that it does nothing to try to categorize the relationship to the pets or eliminate the correlation problems like almost no one has an outdoor cat in an urban environment or any cat in an urban studio apartment.