Health Benefits of Living with Dogs

Tue, 11 May 2021 15:48:38 GMT

The benefits to human health associated with having a canine companion around the house are numerous, but very often understated. Some are pretty obvious. If you take looking after your dog(s) seriously, you will be out walking with them for at least a couple of hours a day, exercising them and yourself. If you have young dogs and you walk briskly or even jog, then you are going to be burning off calories working out doing something which is hopefully enjoyable for both you and your dogs. Even a slower ramble with the oldies strengthens bone and muscle and gets your circulation going, helping to unclog those veins and arteries which our increasingly sedentary lifestyles impose upon us. It’s not just the physical benefits of walking either; just being out and about in the fresh air and the sunshine (or even the wind and the rain!) is mentally stimulating and one of the best cures for mild to moderate depression. Seeing your dogs happy and running around playing, sniffing, doing doggy things and generally just enjoying themselves is uplifting in itself.

But it goes much deeper than this. Our chemistry and biology are attuned to canines in such a way that, in fact, not having dogs around is actually detrimental to our physical, emotional and mental wellbeing! If you have grown up in a household without the friendly wagging tail and toothy smile of the family hound, you have missed out considerably, in so many different ways. But why, I hear people ask? What’s so special about dogs? To which the answer is: we have evolved with canines over a period of at least 40,000 years – far longer than any other species of domesticated animal – and it is this unique symbiotic evolutionary relationship which has bonded us (mutually beneficially) so closely to our canine companions.

Humans and canines go way back into the depths of the last Ice Age when great sheets of ice over a mile thick covered much of the northern parts of North America and Eurasia. It is in this harsh and unforgiving landscape that the Tale of Two Legs and Four Paws really begins. Neanderthals (our close Hominid cousins) were numerous and widespread in Europe and Asia at that time. Anatomically modern humans started moving north into Europe from Africa in waves beginning around 40,000 BCE (during the Ice Age) to 15000BCE (when the vast glaciers finally began to melt and recede). Wolves and Neanderthals and countless other Pleistocene mammals roamed the cold, arid, windswept plains just south of the main glaciers. Homo Sapiens arrived in this frigid Garden of Eden and things began to change. Neanderthals died out eventually (though there were still tiny pockets of them about 8000BCE) and in some cases interbred with modern humans. The once huge and amazing variety of Pleistocene plains fauna also dwindled, probably from a combination of over-hunting and climate change. Homo Sapiens thrived, however– and they domesticated wolves.

According to some scientists, it was this very act of domestication of canines which gave modern humans the crucial edge over Neanderthals and which led to the latter’s long, slow demise. Dogs (friendly wolves) were excellent companions on hunts, with their superior speed, agility and tracking abilities. They were also extremely good as an early warning system around the encampments, alerting humans to the presence of danger, probably even deterring dangerous predatory animals or even rival tribes from coming near. This was, of course, many thousands of years before dogs were used as shepherds and herd guards – human society at this time was exclusively nomadic hunter-gatherer. So, in some ways, we owe our very existence to our unique friendship with dogs – we might never have thrived as a globally dominant species had we not had the benefit of hounds by our side:

A Dog's Life

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 16:42:45 GMT

There's more power in your self than you imagined. Be ready to explore.

The only thing stopping you from achieving your goals and dreams are your own fears.

When you are young and going to school, you often get asked what would you like to be when you grow up. Of course most kids will give stock answers because that's the way they have been conditioned. Few want to be anything out of the ordinary although there are probably plenty of budding rock stars singing to their hairbrush in their bedrooms that never make it. So we all get steered into jobs we will probably never enjoy but it's an accepted way of life and we just put up with it.

I am lucky that my life has revolved so much around dogs because of the rescue and although I love being with my dogs, I never thought that work would be able to revolve around my passion.

I lived in Scotland for much of my childhood because of my mums work where they don't have strict rules for childrens ages and working so I got my first job working for a local hotel at weekends cleaning the rooms. So I always had the drive to work hard and have never been unemployed.

I have never known life without dogs, we never had fewer than 5 and because my dad was a BAGSD instructor we had a lot of difficult dogs come to live with us who needed behavioural help before they could safely be rehomed. I was very involved in the rehabilitation of these dogs, I learnt so much and it was a joy to see dogs change as we worked with them. We had so many different dogs come through our home, I lost count and although it was sad to see dogs, I knew there would soon be another along to take the place of the one that had left.

My last job was working as a service advisor in a local premium car dealership which until March 2020 I enjoyed although the hours were very long. I spent 3 months on furlough which made me realise that I did not enjoy my job and I couldn't face doing that for the rest of my life so I knew I had to make changes.

Finally I decided to do what I know I am good at and do something that I actually enjoy doing and not dread that alarm going off every morning knowing I faced a 50+ hour week doing a job that made me very unhappy.

The great thing about dogs is that they are always very honest with you and always pleased to see you.

I look forward to meeting the animals entrusted into my care whilst their parents are at work or on holiday.

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Health Benefits of Living with Dogs

A Dog's Life

There's more power in your self than you imagined. Be ready to explore.