Abstract
It seems all the rage to describe the health benefits of owning a dog, so I thought I’d add my own story to the genre.
Selkie, a chocolate labrador–cocker spaniel cross, has now been with our family for 3 of the 5 months she’s been alive. We’d been telling the children we would get a dog for so long they’d grown bored of the idea and we probably could have got away with binning the whole thing. My partner, however, grew up with dogs and, to him, our family would never be complete without one. We duly schlepped to Wales and picked up a tiny, brown bundle of exuberance. A little chocolate drop of trouble who has been challenging and adoring us ever since.
In our family, the widely accepted health benefits of owning a dog are just starting to become manifest. Last weekend for instance, we walked along an endless beach, drenched in bright winter sun, scampering up and down sand dunes. I felt like the family from a White Stuff catalogue. It was a walk we would have been unlikely to take without the ‘excuse’ of a dog. She also brought comedy and interest – the children barely complained and there were no arguments.
Such days, though, have been few and far between.
In ways too numerous to list, having Selkie has been like having another child. The many practical issues that surround having a dog and the emotional turbulence (honestly) have mimicked, in mild form, the upheaval I suffered when first having children. She even precipitated a recurrence of the anxiety I developed during pregnancy. For a full 3 weeks, shortly after she came into our lives, I became emotionally fragile. I felt I could not cope with life. I cried at the smallest thing and constantly felt we’d made a mistake. I was forgetting things and then waking early, remembering them. I even lost weight, unintentionally. This has never happened before and was slightly unnerving.
She’s also not been the harbinger of domestic unity we had hoped. The children wind her up and we find ourselves shouting at them, which winds everyone up further. Our family was a total disaster at puppy class – constantly bickering and not concentrating. The children still vie for her attention and there is the occasional ‘discussion’ around dog-related chores.
So, while dog-owning has been shown to lengthen healthy life, improve survival after myocardial infarction and increase activity levels, the effect on my health has been mixed. I am also aware of dogs having a detrimental effect on patients too. One patient suffered a near fatal asthma attack after buying a dog, and another, who has a mild eating disorder, lost an unhealthy amount of weight owing to the strain of looking after a friend’s puppy.
So, dogs are not always the panacea they are sometimes claimed to be. I remain very cautious when people tell me they are getting a dog to help them lose weight/exercise more/relieve arthritis/improve their mood. Dogs are challenging, time-consuming, expensive, distracting, dirty and occasionally dangerous. However, I am sitting here, upstairs, itching to get downstairs to give my bundle of trouble a cuddle. I know she’ll be so thrilled to see me, her whole body will quiver with excitement. I’ve walked her every day and we’re using the garden more than ever, despite the weather. I’m happy to be half a stone lighter and the children adore her. It’s done me no harm to be reminded of the pleasure of good mental health. Who cares about the smelly house and messy garden? I suspect we are going to have a lot of fun over the next decade.
