Pet power: how animals keep us healthy.

Early one Saturday morning, Dorothy Schmidt's cat Nevi woke her by patting and licking her face. When the woman proved hard to rouse, Nevi patted harder and licked Dorothy's lips with her rough tongue. "Finally, I opened my eyes," Dorothy remembers. "When I went into the bathroom, I was astonished to see my face swollen to the size of a watermelon with one eye shut."

She quickly got herself to the local hospital and was told she'd suffered an anaphylactic allergic reaction.

"My airways were almost swollen shut. Doctors said if I'd not found help, I would have died in my sleep."

How did her pet know to wake her? "It was truly a wondrous event--a tribute to my cat, and, I think, to God," she says.

In his book, Nature's Cures, author Michael Castleman writes that British veterinary researcher Andrew Edney, D.V.M., discovered that dogs, too, can predict medical emergencies. He reviewed stories involving 121 dogs who exhibited unusual behavior up to 45 minutes before their owners had seizures or diabetic crises. "They barked, jumped up and down, physically pushed their owner to lie down, and herded others of the household into the person's presence." How did the dogs know to do this? Instinct? Smell? Some other unrecognized signal? Dr. Edney isn't sure.

These are very dramatic examples of what animals can do for our health. Here's another, this one from Dr. Marty Becker's book, The Healing Power of Pets. In the immediate aftermath and shock of the shootings at Columbine High School, "one little boy had been waiting with his mother in a car at a traffic light when terrified students covered in blood and broken glass ran past them. After that, he would not talk--a sign of posttraumatic stress syndrome. After a severe emotional shock, the left side of the brain, the part that controls verbal skills, shuts down. 'This child was all locked up. He couldn't move forward, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat,' said Marguerite McCormack, project director at Columbine Connections Resource Center, where people traumatized by the event could receive free counseling. One clinician had asked if she could bring her English bulldog puppy to work, and Marguerite agreed. The next time the little boy came in, he gravitated to the puppy. The staff were so pleased that he had found something he could respond to that Marguerite encouraged all of her staff to bring in their pets."

Animals are good for human health in other, less dramatic ways. It was once thought that having a dog or cat in the house contributed to childhood allergies. But research is revealing just the opposite. According to an article in The Charlotte Observer, "Raising children alongside the furry companions might reduce rather than increase the likelihood they will break out in itching and sneezing fits."

Although findings are preliminary, the report suggests that "an early dose of dog or cat dander might somehow tweak the immune system in a way that keeps it from mounting the exaggerated response to irritants that can cause allergic symptoms." However, for children who are already allergic, animals are not recommended.

In another study, researchers tracked 450 allergy-prone children for five years. They found that those who lived in homes with a pet cat were 40 percent less likely to develop a wheezing that often leads to asthma than those without a pet.

Strong Bond

The bond between human beings and animals is strong and, while not everyone feels it, many of us do. Lana Kaiser, M.D., D.V.M., professor of both nursing and human medicine at Michigan State University, is one who does. She has numerous dogs and cats as well as twenty cows. She says, "If I feel lousy, I like having a dog lie in my bed." The simple presence of a friendly animal can make us feel better.

A report by ABC News implies that animals may be even more effective in some areas than a best friend. One study suggests that spending a little time with the family pet may relieve greater amounts of stress than talking with a best friend or spouse. According to the report, married couples who had pets "flared better during stress tests if the pet was present than if the spouse or a friend was there." Researchers speculated that the reason for this is that the participants "knew their pets would be less judgmental than their spouses or friends when going through the stress tests."

Going away to college can be a stress test of sorts, too, and some students would like to take their pets with them. A program at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, allows a few to do just that. "We did our homework," says Deb Duren, vice president of student services. Certain rules apply. Pets must be kept in crates or cages when the student is out of the room. Dogs must be 40 pounds or less. "We do have noise restrictions," Duren states. "And there's an enclosed area outside where students walk their pets.... It's worked out well. We've had no problems. The students like the program."

Having a pet benefits older adults, too. A study involving dog-owning seniors on Medicare showed that they required 21 percent fewer doctor visits than the peers who do not have dogs. Further, pet owners were more likely to have lower cholesterol levels and be in better physical shape than those who do not have a pet.

Heart Health

Pets are also good for heart health, writes Michael Castleman, again in Nature's Cures. "A study at Brooklyn College in New York stumbled on an unexpected health bonus: Independent of all other medical and lifestyle factors, men who'd had heart attacks were more likely to survive if they had pets. Since then, many studies have shown that having a cat purr in your lap reduces blood pressure as effectively as many medications. Gazing at a fish tank is as relaxing as some pharmaceutical tranquilizers."

In another study (this one in Prahan, Australia) the blood pressure and cholesterol levels of 784 pet owners were compared to 4,957 nonpet owners.

Here, too, those caring for animals fared significantly better, suggesting that having a pet may well help prevent cardiovascular disease.

Results of studies such as these are so stong, in fact, that federal law now states "that elderly or handicapped residents of federally subsidized housing must be permitted to keep pets," writes Castleman.

Although dogs and cats make up a large proportion of the animals in these studies, other creatures--birds, fish, iguanas, etc.--also contribute to human well-being. Dr. Kaiser says an animal that might not appeal to people "like a chicken, might really make somebody's day. We automatically think it's dogs and cats because they're the most portable, and they're the most common. But I think it can be a lot of different species."

Ageless Love

Another area where animals are helpful is in nursing-care facilities. Many residents find animals a welcome break from their everyday activities--or lack thereof. Interacting with a pet may also take them back to the days when they had beloved animals of their own.

In these institutions, boredom is often a problem, reports John W. Tracy, M.D., a family practice physician in Fancy Gap, Virginia. Many of the residents, he says, "have a mental decline. And if they don't have a mental decline, they've at least got physical problems. They're kind of stuck there. [A pet] gives them something to focus on other than their own problems."

Sometimes animals can work seeming miracles. Consider this from an ABC News report: "A golden retriever called Janie waltzed down the hall of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles awhile back and into the room of a patient who had refused to talk with anyone in weeks. Then Janie did something that the best medical treatments had been unable to do. As she put her paws on the edge of the bed, the patient leaned over and began stroking her ears and talking."

The scene astonished the attending physician, according to one witness who was present for Janie's healing effect, and it underscored a growing feeling among health-care professionals.

"It appears that sometimes, the best therapy of all can be given by a pet. Researchers across the country are learning that pets can do everything from reducing blood pressure during times of intense stress to easing the pain of loneliness."

"It's an up-and-coming field," says Lana Kaiser. "The motto is 'Cuddle a Critter and Call Me in the Morning.'"

Mental Healing

The mental health benefits that pets confer on us can be enormous. For people living alone, they lift spirits and lighten feelings of loneliness and isolation. Animals help us let go of tension, too, and for this reason, many doctors and dentists have aquariums in their waiting rooms. Some retirement communities have aquariums, too.

"There was actually a study done at Purdue where they looked at the effect of a fish tank on patients with Alzheimer's," says Dr; Kaiser, "and what they measured was how much food they ate. A lot of patients with Alzheimer's sort of get up and wander and, if they get up and wander, they don't eat. Then the nursing home or the facility has to supplement them. (These supplements are products such as Ensure.) If the facility had to supplement them, then they had to spend more money to feed them." But when patients focused on the fish tank, she says, they did not wander as much.

Animals are also therapeutic for people with Alzheimer's, says Dr. Tracy, because they get people to look outside themselves a little bit. And it helps in terms of anxiety and depression. "Animals help make the last part of life more comfortable, more bearable, help people to be alert--at least as much as they can be. I don't know how much that does for them physically, but it certainly does a lot for the mental outlook, which is important."

By demanding to be petted or played with, to be let out or walked, to be allowed to snuggle in our laps, animals take us out of ourselves. They make it all but impossible for us to think only of ourselves and our troubles. A pet can be one of the most wonderful and rewarding gifts we ever give ourselves. Dr. Kaiser reports, "I have had people tell me they would have committed suicide had it not been for this creature."

Love in Return

There's one thing, though, that weighs on her mind: how stressful to the animals is our dependence on them? While they offer companionship, love, and comfort--and sometimes work seeming miracles for us--we need to keep in mind the welfare of the animal. Some people never think that the animal you're involving would be getting stressed. But it does. However, the very same stress-reducers that people employ can effectively de-stress a pet: a brisk walk, quiet time together, a happy romp with a chew toy, or even listening to music are some of the ways to soothe the savage heart--human and otherwise.

Animals enrich our lives--making us laugh, cheering us up, calming us down, allaying our fears and loneliness, keeping us company. We owe them a huge debt for this--a debt we repay by providing as much for their physical and emotional needs as they do for ours, and loving them as unconditionally as they love us.

Peggy Rynk's Charlotte, North Carolina, household includes a pug named Max, a Yorkee named Stanley, and a Shiatsu named Abby. "We like to adopt animals," Peggy says. The Rynks have had as many as six dogs at once bringing boundless health and happiness into their home.