More than fun and yappy, they now can help with Health Care Reform.  What?  Lifting their legs on all the obstructionist naysayers?  Nice idea, but no.   Here it is:  Dog owners have better mental and physical health.  Is this just woohoo BS or can this be proved?  Researchers say yes.   If you're a dog owner, you're probably thinking, well duh, I could have told you that. 

Studies on seniors found that if they own a dog they are less likely to require medical services and they are four times less likely to develop clinical depression.  How do you like that for reduction in health care cost?  (Sorry Eli Lilly, Bristol Myer Squibb, and Pfizer).   A Penn State study on elderly men of first heart attack found out men who owned dogs were more likely to be alive.  If you pet a familiar and friendly dog,  there are physiological changes.  You breath slower, your heart beats more regular, your muscles relax-all signs of reduced stress.   What's impressive is that as compared with pharmaceuticals that take 3-4 weeks to take effect, your stress markers drop within 60 to 70 seconds from the time you pet the dog.  Almost instantaneous! 

There's more.  Couples who had dogs were less likely to get divorced.  How can that be?   Let's say you've had a bad day, your partner's had a bad day too.  You come home.  First thing, you pet the dog, your blood pressure goes down, you smile, your stress levels falls-no build up of tension.  Fight averted.  Right there.  Sorry, Marriage Counselors. 

And, yes, there's even more--another cool study.  Research scientist, Karen Allen, designed a study with tasks that were stress inducing and found that participants had lower heart rates and blood pressure during the tasks when in the company of their pets than when a spouse or close friend was present.  In one experiment involving mental arithmetic, participants' blood pressure increased more with a spouse present than with a pet present.

Got a dog?  Go pet it.  Otherwise, head to your local animal shelter and ask if you can be a "dog petter".    If they look at you strange, tell them I sent you.

Source:  Psychologist Stanley Coren has a great podcast on PRI, To the Best of Our Knowledge, entitled Good Dog.  His latest book is "The Modern Dog: A Joyful Exploration of How We Live with Dogs Today.