Oct 13

Dogs help you live longer – it’s official

Dog owners have known this for years but now new research has proven it, dog ownership can help you live longer.

Dogs help you live longer – it’s official

Dogs bring so much joy, companionship and love to our lives that owning a dog realistically can’t not have a positive affect on our health. The feeling you get when their faces light up at seeing you even if you leave them for a few minutes or the joy on their faces as they bring a toy to play with melts even the hardest of hearts.

Lets not forget the exercise dog ownership brings, hands up who would be out walking across an icy field before 6am on a freezing cold and pitch black winters morning if they didn’t have a dog to walk? A typical day I burn an extra 400 calories through dog walking alone.

The study looked at several factors for health including whether dog ownership makes you less likely to develop heart disease and cure depression. The study is ongoing regarding these.

Dogs also bring us very sad and stressful times however, we are going through tough times at the moment with both of our dogs, Molly has just had a cancerous lump removed from her leg and requires another operation to fuse her ankle together as arthritis is causing her joint to bend. Toby our Lakeland Terrier has Lymphoma, an incurable cancer for dogs and was given just weeks to live. This was three months ago and a day hasn’t gone by where one of us hasn’t cried over the news.

Despite the low times, owning a dog is one of the most rewarding and fulfilling things you can do, how can that not have a positive effect on your life?

Leave a comment below, did we need a study to tell us that dogs can help us live longer (and be happier during that time)?

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