Healthier you

City living comes in all flavours. For some it is inner city apartments, for others it is townhouses or suburban blocks. Some live with family, many live alone. Families are a spectrum from the old nuclear family to groups of extended friends, same sex, blended, fostered; pretty much anything you can imagine. The one constant seems to be that Australians love their pets.  Two thirds (2/3) of us own pets. We are one of the highest dog owning countries in the world at 36%.

This has been shown to give us amazing health benefits. People with pets have been shown to have lower levels of stress, recover from operations faster, recover from emotional trauma and bereavement faster, live longer and be less lonely. This last benefit may be directly from the company of their pet but also for dog owners, (as every single male knows walking the dog, preferably while holding a baby) through increased chats while out walking your mate. These benefits extend to the community surrounding us. Suburbs that are designed to be dog friendly have been shown to foster stronger community loyalties and neighbour friendliness.

As our population density increases we are inevitably seeing change in the way we keep our pets. The obvious benefits of owning a pet mean that we must safeguard this privilege for us all through responsible ownership. On this forum we hope to explore issues surrounding our dogs and city living and offer useful information to help us all through our day.

For myself, I would not describe myself as a “stress head”. I do however; live in a house with 3 daughters whose ages range from teenagers to preschool and a busy husband. Without doubt these people I live with talk ALOT. How, I ask myself regularly, do people without pets get through their day?

Every morning I am greeted (I hasten to add – by my lovely husband first) by a Labrador with unending exuberance for what the day may hold. (To be truthful the preschooler is much the same, but so noisy about it!) Firstly, the quality of joy could only be rivalled in the human world by being marooned on a desert island and being re-found. There is always an invitation to a game of “throw my toy” or just “pat me”. Often a belly laugh at some ridiculous antic or expression and most importantly, a helper while I organise breakfast , school lunches and getting myself either off to work or organised for the trenches at home. 

This is a nice counter for the teenagers who are convinced the mornings were invented solely as an apocalypse they have to survive; that general warfare in the bathroom over who gets the shower first is normal and that breakfast must be rushed because less sleep is not possible and no matter what, the hair needs to be right. No appreciation there for the bright colours of morning, the awakening of the birds and general crispness of the air. 

If I am at home she patiently pads around after me with no agenda other than to be near and of course available, if suddenly we zip outside, go for a ride in the car or visit a dog park. What a privilege they are to us each day. As usual scientists needed research to prove that pets were good for our health. Why didn’t they just ask mum?

Kate