QUESTION
What can lower your mortality risk and keep depression on a leash?
One evening in July 1981, Jimmy Stewart sat on the Tonight Show couch and offered to perform a poem he’d written about his dog to a bemused Johnny Carson. He pulled out a folded piece of paper and began, haltingly: “He never came to me when I would call/ Unless I had a tennis ball/Or he felt like it…” The audience laughed. But by the end of the recitation, even the veteran King of Late Night was in tears. Beau, Stewart’s golden retriever, had died. “I reach out my hand to stroke his hair/But he’s not there,” the actor read.
Dogs have lived among humans for millennia. At some point between invading Silesia and annexing parts of Poland, the 18th-century Prussian king Frederick the Great made the observation that they were “man’s best friend” – and it’s an opinion that has stuck. Today, over 26% of the UK adult population owns a dog. As atomised Britons seek companionship in this time of coronavirus, that figure is expected to rise sharply. The Kennel Club announced that searches on its online “find-a-puppy” tool had surged by as much as 84% year on year as the realities of lockdown began to bite.
Which is understandable, and also medically smart. Owning a dog is good for you. According to a Swedish paper published in Scientific Reports, it can help to reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, partly as a result of the extra motivation it provides for physical activity. Other studies have shown that dogs strengthen their owners’ immunity by exposing them to a greater diversity of bacteria, and that playing with a pet can ward off depression by increasing levels of neurochemicals beta-endorphin, oxytocin and dopamine, associated with positivity and bonding.
It’s no wonder, then, that Stewart’s hand continued to reach out for Beau, long after he had been put down. The first to welcome, foremost to defend, dogs – as Lord Byron put it after the death of his shaggy Newfoundland breed – are your firmest friend. So look after them well. And remember: a dog is for life, not just for pandemics.