Can You Train a Cat Like a Dog

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The Health and Mood-Boosting Benefits of Pets

Pets come with some powerful health benefits. Here'south how caring for a dog, cat, or other brute can help relieve depression and anxiety, lower stress, and ameliorate your heart wellness.

Man reclined on sofa, reacting with gleeful surprise as small dog, on his chest licks his chin

The benefits of pets

Most pet owners are clear about the immediate joys that come with sharing their lives with companion animals. However, many of united states of america remain unaware of the physical and mental health benefits that can likewise accompany the pleasure of snuggling upward to a furry friend. It'due south only recently that studies have begun to scientifically explore the benefits of the human-animal bail.

Pets accept evolved to become acutely attuned to humans and our behavior and emotions. Dogs, for example, are able to empathise many of the words we use, just they're even better at interpreting our tone of vox, body language, and gestures. And like any good human friend, a loyal domestic dog will look into your eyes to gauge your emotional country and endeavour to understand what you're thinking and feeling (and to piece of work out when the next walk or treat might be coming, of class).

Pets, peculiarly dogs and cats, can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, ease loneliness, encourage exercise and playfulness, and even improve your cardiovascular health. Caring for an brute tin help children grow up more secure and active. Pets also provide valuable companionship for older adults. Perhaps most importantly, though, a pet can add real joy and unconditional dearest to your life.

Whatsoever pet tin meliorate your health

While it'south true that people with pets oftentimes experience greater health benefits than those without, a pet doesn't necessarily have to be a domestic dog or a cat. A rabbit could be platonic if you're allergic to other animals or have express infinite only even so want a hirsuite friend to snuggle with. Birds can encourage social interaction and help keep your mind sharp if y'all're an older adult. Snakes, lizards, and other reptiles tin can make for exotic companions. Even watching fish in an aquarium can help reduce muscle tension and lower your pulse charge per unit.

Studies take shown that:

Pet owners are less probable to suffer from low than those without pets.
People with pets have lower blood pressure in stressful situations than those without pets. 1 study fifty-fifty constitute 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 at-home and relax.
Pet owners take lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels (indicators of heart disease) than those without pets.
Eye attack patients with pets survive longer than those without.
Pet owners over historic period 65 brand 30 percent fewer visits to their doctors than those without pets.

Ane of the reasons for these therapeutic effects is that pets fulfill the basic man need for touch. Even hardened criminals in prison show long-term changes in their behavior after interacting with pets, many of them experiencing mutual affection for the first time. Stroking, hugging, or otherwise touching a loving animal can rapidly calm and soothe you when y'all're stressed or anxious. The companionship of a pet can also ease loneliness, and virtually dogs are a great stimulus for healthy practise, which can substantially boost your mood and ease depression.

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How pets can help y'all make healthy lifestyle changes

Adopting healthy lifestyle changes plays an important function in easing symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, bipolar disorder, and PTSD. Caring for a pet can aid you brand healthy lifestyle changes past:

Increasing exercise. Taking a dog for a walk, hike, or run are fun and rewarding ways to fit good for you daily practise into your schedule. Studies have shown that dog owners are far more probable to meet their daily practise requirements—and exercising every twenty-four hour period is great for the animal too. Information technology will deepen the connection betwixt y'all, eradicate about behavior problems in dogs, and continue your pet fit and healthy.

Providing companionship. Companionship can assist prevent illness and even add years to your life, while isolation and loneliness can trigger symptoms of depression. Caring for an animal tin assist make y'all experience needed and wanted, and accept the focus abroad from your problems, especially if you live alone. Well-nigh domestic dog and true cat owners talk to their pets, some fifty-fifty apply them to work through their troubles. And naught beats loneliness like coming home to a wagging tail or purring cat.

Helping yous encounter new people. Pets can be a great social lubricant for their owners, helping you offset and maintain new friendships. Domestic dog owners ofttimes stop and talk to each other on walks, hikes, or in a dog park. Pet owners also meet new people in pet stores, clubs, and training classes.

Reducing feet. The companionship of an animal can offer comfort, assistance ease anxiety, and build self-confidence for people anxious about going out into the world. Because pets tend to live in the moment—they don't worry almost what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow—they tin help you lot become more mindful and appreciate the joy of the present.

Adding structure and routine to your mean solar day. Many pets, especially dogs, crave a regular feeding and practice schedule. Having a consequent routine keeps an brute balanced and at-home—and it tin work for yous, besides. No matter your mood—depressed, anxious, or stressed—1 plaintive wait from your pet and you'll have to get out of bed to feed, exercise, and care for them.

[Read: Coping with Depression]

Providing sensory stress relief. Touch and motion are two salubrious ways to quickly manage stress. Stroking a dog, cat, or other animal can lower blood pressure level and help yous quickly feel calmer and less stressed.

Get a canis familiaris, lose weight

A number of studies have linked owning a domestic dog to losing weight:

A year-long study at the Wellness Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago found that walking an overweight domestic dog helped both the animals and their owners shed unwanted pounds. Researchers found that the dogs provided support in similar ways to a human practise buddy, simply with greater consistency and without any negative influence.
Another study by the Research Center for Homo-Brute Interaction constitute that public housing residents who walked therapy dogs for up to 20 minutes 5 days a week lost an average of 14.4 pounds in a twelvemonth, without changing their diets.
A third report, conducted past canis familiaris food manufacturer Mars Petcare, found that people with a dog walked 30 minutes more than per calendar week than they did before owning a dog.

The benefits of pets for older adults

As well as providing vital companionship, owning a pet can play an important office in healthy aging by helping you to:

Detect meaning and joy in life. Equally you age, you'll lose things that previously occupied your time and gave your life purpose. Yous may retire from your career or your children may motility far abroad. Caring for a pet tin can bring pleasure and assistance boost your morale, optimism, and sense of self-worth. Choosing to adopt a pet from a shelter, especially an older pet, can add to your sense of fulfillment, knowing that you've provided a home to a pet that may otherwise take been euthanized.

[Read: Cultivating Happiness]

Stay connected. Maintaining a social network isn't always piece of cake as y'all grow older. Retirement, disease, death, and relocation can take abroad shut friends and family members. And making new friends can get harder. Pets, particularly dogs, are a cracking fashion for older adults to spark up conversations and come across new people.

Boost your vitality. You lot can overcome many of the concrete challenges associated with aging by taking good intendance of yourself. Dogs, cats, and other pets encourage playfulness, laughter, and practise, which tin can help heave your immune system and increase your energy.

How pets help adults with Alzheimer's disease or dementia

Equally part of the disease, Alzheimer's patients may exhibit a variety of behavioral problems, many related to an disability to bargain with stress.

Inquiry at the University of California at Davis concluded that Alzheimer'southward patients suffer less stress and have fewer broken-hearted outbursts if there is a canis familiaris or cat in the home.
Pets can provide a source of positive, nonverbal advice. The playful interaction and gentle touch from a well-trained, docile animal can help soothe an Alzheimer's patient and decrease aggressive behavior—as can simply beingness exposed to bright aquariums or fish tanks.
In many cases a patient'south problem behavior is a reaction to the stressed response of the primary caretaker. Pets can assistance ease the stress of caregivers. Cats or caged animals may be more suitable than dogs, which more often than not require more care and can add together to the burden of someone who's already looking after an Alzheimer's patient.

The benefits of pets for children

Not simply exercise children who grow up with pets have less risk of allergies and asthma, many also learn responsibility, compassion, and empathy from having a dog or true cat.

[Read: Raising Emotionally Intelligent Children]

Different parents or teachers, pets are never disquisitional and don't give orders. They are ever loving and their mere presence at dwelling house tin can help provide a sense of security in children. Having an ever-present pet can assistance ease separation anxiety in children when mom and dad aren't around.
Having the love and companionship of a pet can make a child experience important and assistance them develop a positive self-image.
Kids who are emotionally attached to their pets are better able to build relationships with other people.
Studies have besides shown that pets tin can help calm hyperactive or overly aggressive kids. Of course, both the animal and the kid demand to exist trained to behave appropriately with each other.
A pet tin can assist develop a immature and expanding heed by teaching a child empathy and agreement. Kids can talk with their pet without a fear of rejection, which enables them to build their confidence, and even their vocabulary.
Getting fifty-fifty a small, caged pet, such as a guinea pig or hamster, is a great way to teach a child responsibility.

Like adults, children can benefit from playing with a pet. It can exist a source of calmness and relaxation, likewise every bit a source of stimulation for the encephalon and body. Playing with a pet can fifty-fifty exist a doorway to learning for a child. It tin can stimulate a child'south imagination and marvel. The rewards of training a canis familiaris to perform a new trick, for case, can teach kids the importance of perseverance. Caring for a hirsuite friend can as well offering another do good to a kid: immense joy.

Children with learning disorders and other challenges

Some children with autism or other learning difficulties are better able to interact with pets than people. Autistic children oft rely on nonverbal cues to communicate, just as animals exercise. And learning to first connect with a pet may even help an autistic kid in their interactions with people.

Pets tin can help children with learning disabilities learn how to regulate stress and calm themselves, making them improve equipped to overcome the challenges of their disorder.
Playing and exercising with a canis familiaris or cat tin can assistance a child with learning disorders stay alarm and circumspect throughout the 24-hour interval. Information technology tin also exist a great antitoxin to stress and frustration caused past the learning disability.

Owning a pet is a major commitment

Despite all the benefits, information technology's of import to retrieve that a pet is not a miracle cure for mental health bug. Owning a pet is beneficial and comforting only for those who love and appreciate domestic animals and have the time and coin to keep a pet happy and healthy. If you're but not an "creature person," pet ownership is not going to provide y'all with any health benefits or improve your life.

Even if yous love animals, it's important to understand everything that caring for a pet entails. Owning a pet is a major delivery that will last through the creature's lifetime, perhaps ten or xv years in the instance of dogs. And at the end of that commitment, you'll face the grief and mourning that comes with losing a beloved companion.

[Read: Coping with Losing a Pet]

Other drawbacks to owning a pet include:

Pets cost coin. Nutrient bills, veterinary intendance, licenses, grooming costs, toys, bedding, boarding fees, and other maintenance expenses can mount up. If you're unemployed or elderly, on a express fixed income, it may exist a struggle to cope with the expense of pet buying.

Pets require fourth dimension and attention. Equally any dog owner will tell yous, there's nothing therapeutic about coming domicile to a domestic dog that has been locked up in the house on his own all day. Dogs need daily practice to stay calm and well-balanced; most other pets require at least daily care and attention.

Owning a pet can adjourn some of your social activity. A dog can only exist left alone for a express fourth dimension. Past training your dog, you lot'll exist able to take him with y'all to visit friends, run errands, or sit outside a coffee shop, for instance, simply y'all won't exist able to leave for a spur of the moment weekend away without arranging intendance for your pet first.

Pets can be destructive. Whatever pet can take an occasional accident at home. Some cats may be prone to shredding upholstery, some dogs to chewing shoes. While preparation can help eradicate negative, destructive beliefs, they remain common in animals left alone without exercise or stimulation for long periods of time.

Pets require responsibility. Most dogs, regardless of size and breed, are capable of inflicting injury on people if not handled responsibly by their owners. Fifty-fifty cats tin can scratch or bite. Pet owners need to exist alert to any danger, especially around children.

Pets carry health risks for some people. While there are some diseases that can be transmitted from cats and dogs to their homo handlers, allergies are the well-nigh common health risk of pet ownership. If yous or a family unit fellow member has been diagnosed with a pet allergy, advisedly consider whether you tin live with the symptoms before committing to pet ownership. Too consider that some friends or relatives with allergies may no longer be able to visit your dwelling house if you take a pet.

How to detect the perfect pet

If yous've decided that owning a pet is correct for you, congratulations: you're about to open up your life to a unique and rewarding relationship. While people who have pets tend to be happier, more independent, and feel more secure than those without pets, information technology's important to select the type of pet that best suits your needs and lifestyle.

Talk to other members of your household and agree on the qualities you want in a pet and those that yous'd prefer to avoid. In the example of dogs, human being's best friend comes in countless breeds or mix of breeds, each offering a different blend of personality traits.

If you're looking for something smaller or with less free energy, and so perhaps a cat or a rabbit would be correct for you and your family. Here are some things to enquire yourself when looking for the perfect pet:

Exercise you alive in a small apartment or a big house with a backyard? This will profoundly make up one's mind the size of the animal all-time suited to your home. For case, a cat or caged animal may be more suitable to flat living than a big dog.
How much fourth dimension will the animal spend alone each day? If you're out for most of the day—and don't intend to rent a pet sitter or use daycare—you'll want an fauna that doesn't demand a lot of attention, rather than a dog.
Practice you live with small children or someone fragile or disabled who could be knocked over by a large dog? Perchance a smaller animal would be a safer option.
How much shedding can you tolerate? Specific dog and true cat breeds tend to shed less or y'all could opt for a pet that doesn't shed at all, similar an iguana or a ophidian (well, at to the lowest degree not pilus).

Ultimately, when choosing a pet, be honest with yourself about the lifestyle you bask and the kind of pet you'd like to intendance for. If yous're in doubt virtually caring for a larger brute, first small, become a fish or a smaller, caged animal. See how information technology fits and go from there.

Shelter and rescue animals

Whether mixed breed or purebred, dogs and cats adopted from a shelter or rescue grouping make excellent pets. For the most part, pets end up in a shelter through no error of their ain. Their owner may have died or moved to a place that doesn't allow pets, or the pet may have simply been abandoned past irresponsible owners who bought them on a whim and after discovered that they were unable or unwilling to care for them properly. If whatsoever shelter or rescue animal exhibits aggressive behavior, it is typically euthanized rather than offered for adoption.

Rescue groups endeavour to find suitable homes for unwanted or abased dogs, cats, and other pets, many taken from shelters where they would otherwise have been euthanized. Volunteers usually take intendance of the animals until they can find a permanent home. This means that rescuers are frequently very familiar with a pet'south personality and can help advise yous on whether the pet would make a good lucifer for your needs.

By adopting an animal from a shelter or rescue organization, y'all'll not but exist giving a home to a deserving pet, but y'all'll also probable exist saving an brute'south life.

Alternatives to pet ownership

If yous don't take the time, coin, or ability to own a pet full-time, in that location are still ways yous can experience the health benefits of beingness effectually animals. Yous tin ask to walk a neighbor'south dog, for instance, or volunteer at an beast shelter. Most brute shelters or rescue groups welcome volunteers to help care for homeless pets or assist at adoption events. You'll non simply be helping yourself, only also helping to socialize and practise the animals, making them more adoptable.

Some animal shelters and rescue groups offer pet "rental" programs. Dogs and cats that are available for adoption tin can be taken out for walks or play dates. You tin can also foster an animal temporarily until a permanent home is establish for him, or to determine if the animal is right for you.

A variety of different organizations offer peculiarly trained therapy dogs and cats to visit children's hospitals, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, hospice programs, shelters, and schools. During these visits, people are invited to pet and stroke the animals, which can improve mood and reduce stress and feet.

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Source: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/mood-boosting-power-of-dogs.htm