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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago. Correlation is not the same as causation — except, apparently, when pet owners think it is. Many of us who adore our mutts and moggies firmly believe they make us healthier and happier. But experts on human-animal interaction say there’s scant evidence that this is true.
“I’m a pet lover, I personally feel that my pets have always made me healthier and happier — and almost every pet owner will tell you that — but the paradox is that the bulk of empirical research does not support the idea that pet owners are mentally or physically better off than non-pet owners,” says Hal Herzog, emeritus professor of psychology at Western Carolina University and an expert on anthrozoology.
We can be forgiven for thinking the opposite: a 2021 survey by the Human Animal Bond Research Institute, a pet industry body, found that 76 per cent of owners “report that their personal health has improved” because they own a pet, and 87 per cent say their mental health is better. But that just proves most of us believe the conventional wisdom; the facts are less clear. Hundreds of studies have been done over the past 30 years hoping to prove that pets help us live longer, fight heart disease, reverse depression, or combat loneliness. But a 2023 meta-analysis of such studies found, in line with earlier scholarship, that “pet ownership does not seem to influence owners’ mental health”.
The 2023 research found that pet owners showed “a higher frequency of physical activity than non-owners” — which can’t be a bad thing, right? But Nancy Gee, director of the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University, tells me there is a “chicken and egg” problem with all such research: “Do dogs make us healthier, or do healthy people opt to own dogs?”
For example, I walk my dogs for an hour every morning on Lake Michigan’s beaches, but do they force me to get more exercise or just come along for the ride? I also go to Zumba three times a week and do weight training, too: my mutts Dumpling and Huahua don’t get credit for that. It’s not even clear that there’s always a correlation between pets and human health or bliss, let alone a causal link, says Gee. “Many people assume dogs are good for us but they can be bad for us as well . pets are not a panacea, there are times when they are good for us and times when not so much.”
I know what she means: watching Huahua and Dumpling struggle through their 15th year — one is senile and nearly blind, the other deaf and always worried — is not doing my mental health any favors. “It’s a hard topic to study,” Gee says, noting that the researcher can’t randomly assign a dog to one person and a horse to another, and people who don’t like pets “typically don’t sign up for such studies”. Gee says petting a dog can decrease stress and boost feel-good hormones, at least temporarily. But that doesn’t guarantee a lifetime of health and bliss for owner or pet.
Jessica Pierce, a bioethicist affiliated with the University of Colorado, tells me that “pets that live in our homes are one of the most miserable populations of animals on earth”, pointing to a recent large Finnish study that found nearly three-quarters of the dogs studied suffered from anxiety. Pierce says we are increasingly asking our pets to live and behave like humans, “and dog behaviors like digging, barking, roaming, and marking are being suppressed”.
Does that mean Dumpling and Huahua were happier when they were living on the streets of Shanghai, before I adopted them? Not necessarily, Pierce says, but she challenges me to ask myself whether I could be “doing better by them”. That brought me up short: every year I take Dumpling and Huahua on a campervan trip at leaf-changing time: they hate it. Last year, I took them on a luxury hotel tour. They would far rather never leave home.
I’ve invested thousands of dollars, and a big chunk of my life, in the hypothesis that my dogs make me happy — and vice versa. So there’s a sunk cost issue. But it may soon be time to face facts, and not just feelings: should I pet-parent again, once they’re gone? I’m going to need to think about that. patti.waldmeir@ft.com
In conclusion, while many pet owners believe that their furry companions make them healthier and happier, the scientific evidence is not as clear-cut. Studies have shown that pet ownership does not necessarily lead to improved mental health or physical well-being. The relationship between pets and human health is complex, with factors such as individual lifestyle choices and the specific needs of the pet playing a role. It is important for pet owners to critically evaluate the impact of their pets on their own well-being and to consider whether they are truly providing the best care for their animal companions.
