One in five American households adopted a dog or cat since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a national American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals survey. That’s a lot of furry new additions to the family, but can we blame our neighbors?
Our canine and feline friends are goofy, attentive, and always manage to put a smile on our faces — and new research suggests man’s best friend provided dog owners with the extra love and social support they needed to get through a year of lockdowns, social distancing, working from home, and a raging global health crisis.
In a study published in December in the journal PLoS One, scientists reported that dog owners had more social support and fewer depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with peers who didn’t own a dog.
“Dogs play an important role in people’s emotional lives. And it looks like they helped their owners cope better with this difficult situation we’ve all been in,” says Francois Martin, PhD, the study’s lead author, who is a researcher in the animal behavior and welfare group at Nestlé Purina in St. Louis, which researches interactions between people and their pets. (The pet food company Purina funded the research.)
Dr. Martin — who owns two Great Danes — says dogs were the ultimate lockdown companion, whether we wanted to binge watch Tiger King on Netflix, bake sourdough bread, or make like Marie Kondo and declutter the home.
“I’m always amazed that dogs are cool with any agenda we propose to them. They’re extremely smart, social animals, attuned to our feelings and our signals. They’re always happy to see you — this kind of comfort is powerful during these times,” Martin says.
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Dog Owners Felt More Supported Throughout COVID
The study from Martin’s team included 1,535 volunteer participants from across the United States — 768 dog owners and 767 “potential dog owners” (defined for the purpose of this study as people who said they were extremely interested in owning a dog in the future). Because the researchers wanted to zero in solely on dog ownership, participants didn’t own any other types of pets. People who owned service, emotional support, or therapy dogs were also excluded from the study.
In either November 2020 or February 2021, both groups answered online questionnaires on topics, such as the amount of social support they felt like they had from family and friends, along with their levels of happiness, anxiety, and depression. The questions were designed using six validated psychometric scales that are used by psychologists to diagnose and measure levels of depression, anxiety, and overall mood.
Sixty-seven percent of all study participants said their emotions had been somewhat to extremely impacted, while 45 percent said their finances took a hit during the pandemic. Seventy-two percent of participants said their lifestyle had also drastically changed since March 2020.
But the researchers found that people who owned dogs reported having more social support available to them. In the study, social support meant three things: being cared for, feeling loved and valued, and having a sense of belonging.
The effect wasn’t large compared with the group without dogs, but Martin says it was still “statistically significant.” While dog owners’ depression scores were also lower, it’s worth noting there were no differences between both groups on levels of anxiety and happiness, though.
“To read this article in its entirety click this link: Puppy Love: Study Finds Dogs Helped Owners Cope With Pandemic’s Psychological Toll.“