I believe animals play an immense role in the health and happiness of the humans around them. Both my experiences and scientific evidence prove truth behind my belief. Ian Cook, MD, a psychiatrist and director of Depression Research and Clinic Program at UCLA, states “Pets offer an unconditional love that can be very helpful to people with depression.”
My move to South Carolina from Massachusetts is how this belief came about in my life. Being from a different state, I had no friends in the area and spent a lot of time alone and crying. I spent months looking for a pet to keep me company and be my friend. Eventually a neighbor’s dog had puppies and I found my new friend; I named her Matilda and we were inseparable. My mood changed dramatically from being sad to happy.
Almost a year later a lot of things had changed; I wasn’t alone all the time, I had some friends along with Mattie, and was still happy. One afternoon I came home to find Mattie was gone. I spent months searching for her and I became very sad again, I had lost my best friend. A few months after she had disappeared I ha...
"The Case For Animal Rights" written by Tom Regan, promotes the equal treatment of humans and non-humans. I agree with Regan's view, as he suggests that humans and animals alike, share the experience of life, and thus share equal, inherent value.
Some medical professionals do not believe that mental health patients can benefit from therapy dogs and go as far as saying it is a risk far as to say that it is a to the patient and compromise the patients ability to take care of the dog. When people who suffer with mental health issues qualify to get a therapy dog. The mental health patient is tested to see if they are capable of taking care of the dog. Those in need of assistance should use therapy dogs frequently do to the part of the benefits to using these pets to improve mental and emotional health as and physical health. Therapy dogs are beneficial to people who suffer from mental health issues by providing companionship as well as support. Some people with mental health issues have a hard time trusting others and need someone to talk to; Service dogs are important because to make they people with mental health problems feel better and help people with these disorders deal with their emotions.
Several studies have examined the effects of dog ownership on people's physical and mental health. Dog ownership produces considerable health benefit and provides social support that encourages dog owners to walk (Cutt et al.2007 ). Pet owners appear to have lower systolic blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels(Anderson et al 1992). Pet owners with serious mental illness living in the community demonstrate higher social community integration(Zimalog and Krupa 2009). Socially excluded participants who performed in the presence of a dog report higher mental well-being compared with socially excluded participants who did not work in the presence of a dog (Nilüfer et al 2012). Although there is evidence suggesting that dog ownership can improve people's physical and mental health, there is little research documenting the psychological and behavioral effects of dog-assisted therapy, especially on elderly patients with dementia, who have dif...
Most people are familiar with service dogs and have seen them in action. Animal-assisted therapy is similar service animals in that an animal-human healing partnership is being created. However, the difference is that therapy pets are typically used to treat a mental disability whereas people with physical disabilities use service dogs to help them in many ways. Therapy animals are used in a wide variety of places, such as, hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, therapy sessions, mental healthcare facilities, and even in people’s homes. These amazing animals are used on a wide variety of different disorders, but they are utilized mostly by people suffering from depression, anxiety, and PTSD. For people with these mental health disorders, everything in live can be difficult and challenging, however with the help of animal-assisted therapy, their mood, motivation, and life can dramatically improve. Anyone who hears about these brave, loving animals soon falls in love with them. From a medical standpoint, there have been many successful studies and the support for animal-assisted therapy still continues to grow in doctors and therapists across the nation.
Mr. Phillips Sherman argued, in his excerpt, Animals and Our Relationship To Them as Outlined in Genesis, that readers of the Hebrew Bible, should recognize the full range of views concerning animals and their lives within in the pages. Mr. Shermans argument focused on the ideology behind animal hierarchies in Genesis 1:26-28.
Animal welfare assessment has been based on the five freedoms1 concept. This considered negative aspects of mental state (fear and stress) and the compromise of physical domains (nutrition, environment, health, behavior), but did not take into account any positive states [1]. Positive welfare has been gaining importance in science [2,3,4] and among public opinion in the past years [5]. As a result, the five freedoms definition started to change and included positive experiences or emotions such as satiety, vitality, reward, contentment, curiosity and playfulness as part of animal welfare [1].
In the 1970s the question of animal rights became a major social issue that more people started to take notice and action in. This discovery of the cruelty these animals go through, lead animal cruelty to become a serious issue in our world today. To understand how animals could be treated so unjustly one would need to know that many believed that animals could not feel pain. However, animals can feel pain just like humans can and using them for experimentation causes them extreme pain. “Each year, more than 100 million animals are killed in the U.S. laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics” (Peta 1). With countries having inadequate regulations to protect animal’s rights the chances of that number dropping are slim to none.
“Much as we might want to understand animals at a level deeper than pop culture, we can only understand them in terms of our own experiences, language and emotions, and interpreted within our social, historical and cultural contexts. The only way we have of understanding animals is to recognize that ‘when we gaze at animals we hold up a mirror to ourselves’ (Corbett, 176). Animal messages are brought to us by the pop culture industry, whose job it is to create, disseminate, and sell meaning. In most cases, they aren’t selling you a moose, but what a moose means to you for example – the characteristics and qualities that you and most people associate with the species. Based on common meanings presented to us from an early age, animals are the perfect shorthand communication symbol. We use animals as devices, metaphors and symbols for a great deal of our expressions and ideas” (Corbett, 179).
Animals are great pets to have to be there for you through challenges because they are supporting and loving and they help others. They also care for you if your sick they would show you love when needed. Animals will stay by your side and try to make you the happiest person and try to make you feel loved and cared about. Every new experience can make a person change, sometimes the change is positive, and other times its negative. Animals are helpful, supporting, and caring.
Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT), which can be provided in a group or individual settings, is designed to promote improvement in a human’s physical, social, emotional, or cognitive function. An article by Chitic, Rusu, and Szamoskozi (2012) provides an analysis in order to determine the value of AAT. Both dogs and horses that were trained for AAT were examined and studied to determine their effectiveness in treating patients with psychological disorders. The results showed that both therapy dogs and horses were valuable aids to the therapeutic process. The analysis suggests that proper training and repeated sessions were necessary for proper treatment of patients. In addition, certain disorders may benefit more than others in regards to AAT. For example, a child with ADHD may not benefit from a therapy dog’s presence, for it may worsen the hyperactive symptoms. On the other hand, a patient with depression may benefit greatly from the same animal (Chitic, Rusu, Szamoskozi, 2012). These findings are a perfect starting point to answering the research question: Do patients who engage in AAT display a betterment in their overall emotional well-being, as well as show improvement in their interpersonal interactions...
I will first look at the views of Peter Singer, who is a utilitarian. A
Owning a pet can have many physical and mental health benefits. Medical studies show having a pet result's in lower blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and triglyceride levels. Pets have a role in cardiovascular health from lowering blood pressure, and they encourage psychosocial stability in owners, which further reduces the risk of heart disease. In the hectic and fast-paced world we live in today, pets are actually saving our lives. Pets provide an excuse to be active, dogs live an active lifestyle, wanting to play and run around outside. By making us more active and improving our health, dogs often provide a good workout! Instead of sitting on the couch being lazy, dogs are eager to transfer their energy and enthusiasm to the owner benefiting both dog and owner in many ways. Studies show that dogs demonstrate trust and provide comfort to the sick or elderly thus helping people to live longer and to be more positive as they age. Animal owners over 75 years of age have f...
When I was three years old, I spent my summer in a pond by my home chasing frogs and snakes. When I was five years old, my mother found me sleeping under a mare with her foal. When I was fifteen I spent my spare time working for a family friend’s thoroughbred farm. However, my first love for animal care was born when I was nineteen when I first held an owl. I was an extremely fortunate child to grow up in the Maine wilderness as I did, learning to marvel at the raw beauty of nature at a young age. I attended a nature themed summer camp every year throughout my youth, learning about the sciences of soil and water systems and how they impacted the animals around them. I took every opportunity to immerse myself in animals at any opportunity, from
Would you like to live a happy and productive life? Then get pets! I must admit it is hard to believe that domesticated animals can promote mental and physical health, but many studies have shown that they can. People who own pets have been known to lead longer and happier lives than those without them. As we get older, we become less active. The more inactive we become, the higher our risk of death. We therefore need something in our lives to keep us busy so we don’t die prematurely, and a pet is just the thing to do it. This is probably because of the companionship, exercise, and responsibility that they provide. On the other hand, you must find a pet that is compatible with you or with your life style. Maintaining good mental health is crucial for living a normal life.
Animals can be perceived in many different ways. While some humans consider animals to be mindless machines programmed with instinct, others view them as spiritual creatures capable of coherent thought and emotions. I feel that animals are somewhere in the middle. Although they rely heavily on instinct, the ability to feel emotions shows that their mental capacity is not far from that of a human.