Throughout the ages, people have been saying that dogs are one of our best companions. From all of the domesticated animals, they’re the ones with the so many different roles, from protectors and helpers to companions and lifesavers.
Dogs are without doubt amazing friends and they’ve been with us throughout all this time- we’ve built one of the most special bonds with them-one that’s deep and ancient. We’ve been calling them our best friends for at least the last 15,000 years.
And, science seems to back up this amazing friendship-research suggests that having a dog helps better the cardiovascular health, lower depression, and even help us live longer.
For humans, the human-dog bond goes much deeper than fetch or the long walks. Below, learn the most amazing reasons why we proudly call dogs our best friends.
Great Reasons Why We Love Dogs & Call Them Our Best Friends
They consider us their family
It’s not our imagination or a way to explain behavior by personifying, but dogs really see us as their family.
In one study done by scientists at the Emory University, the brains of the dogs’ reward centers flared up the most when they were presented with scents from their humans, showing their prioritizing of human relationships over food aromas and aromas of other dogs.
Good for our cardiovascular health
Results from preliminary research published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings journal points out that having a pet is good for the heart, especially if this pet is a dog.
The 1800 participants were closely evaluated using the 7 life factors we can better to boost our heart health and then compared the health of the pet owners with that of the ones without pets.
It was concluded that the ones with pets generally were more likely to report being physically active, eating better, and having balanced blood sugar levels.
Follow ups of the research are scheduled until the year of 2030.
Teach us ways of learning
In simple words, dogs are better at ignoring bad advice than us.
In one research by the Yale University’s Canine Cognition Center, dogs were presented with retrieving puzzle treats and they were presented with a lot of extra steps in the demonstration.
When it was their turn, the dogs skipped the surplus steps, which showed their capacity to filter information.
The human kids didn’t perform that great- they settled on imitation, no matter if the step was useful or not.
As humans, we tend to trust the info we get from other people, unlike dogs.
They teach us about ourselves
Yes, dogs don’t just look like their owners, but are also mirroring their personalities and we can use this to have a better understanding of ourselves.
According to one research from the Journal of Research in Personality, the more than 1600 dog owners were found to have shaped their dogs’ personalities.
The extroverted humans rated their dogs as being more playful and active whereas the ones with more fearful dogs had more negative feelings.
The more agreeable owners had less aggressive pets.
They help us live longer
When your heart is healthier, you have a chance of living longer; at least this is what a study and meta-analysis from the Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes journal claims.
According to the researchers, the dog owners who had a heart attack had 33 percent lowered risk of early death than the survivors without dogs.
The same was the case with people who survived a stroke.
Another study which looked at the national registries for more than 3.4 million Swedes without heart illness prior to 2001 discovered that the single dog owners had a reduced death risk either due to heart disease (11%) or other reasons (33%).
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