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Dogs as emotional support

Animals play an increasingly important role in people’s lives, including being required as “emotional support”, that is, those pets that help their owners regulate and modulate any fear or emotional or mental imbalance.

a man posing with his dog pets emotional health support bridge

a man posing with his dog pets emotional health support bridge

 

Caring for a dog is a laborious but rewarding task.

It implies love, care, time and responsibility. However, when you have love, all that goes into the background and attention becomes a habit that is done without effort or complaints.

Your dog is your best friend, and not just because he adores you with all your flaws.

In addition, he makes your life happy and acts as an emotional support. Surely you have heard on occasion that these animals can help you fight depression, as well as fight anxiety. They are your best allies when you need to overcome a difficult stage in your life. A pet acts as a real pain medicine.

The bond that some people may develop with their pet can be very special and above all, a lot of help when it comes to fears or emotional imbalances, because they provide not only company and affection, but also act as an element of emotional containment, that is, provide stability and tranquility, therefore the benefits of having a pet are multiple.

Perhaps you can imagine how special an emotional support pet can become for a person, since they establish very close ties, even more so when they help combat mood disorders, becoming one more member of the family, as his company serves as relief.

These are the reasons why your dog serves as a stimulus and motivation for you to smile again:

  1. He allows you to dedicate your attention to caring for a being that depends on you. This responsibility serves as therapy, since it gets you to channel your concern into him instead of in that problem that torments you.
  2. He doesn’t judge you. In fact, he will always see you as the most special being in his world. You are the reason why he wags his tail and why he feels happy. Who is not moved to be loved above anything else?
  3. He makes you not feel alone, and for this you just have to see how he gets every time you enter the house. Experts say that dogs are capable of feeling any emotional pain you suffer. When they detect it, they will know how to return you with all their affection so that you do not see yourself helpless.

 

Studies have shown that:

  • Pet owners are less likely to suffer from depression than those without pets.
  • People with pets have lower blood pressure in stressful situations than those without pets. One study even found that when people with borderline hypertension adopted dogs from a shelter, their blood pressure declined significantly within five months.
  • Playing with a dog, cat, or other pet can elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine, which calm and relax.
  • Pet owners have lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels (indicators of heart disease) than those without pets.
  • Heart attack patients with pets survive longer than those without.
  • Pet owners over age 65 make 30 percent fewer visits to their doctors than those without pets.

Unlike these emotional support pets, service pets do require prior training and are used specifically as accompaniment and aid for people with certain disabilities or psychiatric disorders (hearing loss or deafness, blindness, autism, post-traumatic stress, schizophrenia, etc.).

While emotional support pets do not require special training, only their character name and that they have basic behaviors is enough.

by Tannia V.

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