Your dog or cat can do more than just keeping you company

Nothing compares to the joy of coming home to a loyal companion. The unconditional love of a pet can do more than keep you company.

By Sevitha Sita Sree Maturi

Hyderabad: Nothing compares to the joy of coming home to a loyal companion. The unconditional love of a pet can do more than keep you company. Animals can serve as a source of comfort and support because their attention is always focused on the person all the time.

Having a pet generally has many benefits in improving mood and well-being. The bond with animals helps in many ways like reducing boredom, providing companionship and reducing loneliness, and increasing activity through walks and playing. These positive interactions lead to benefits in the mind and body, such as reduced stress and an overall more balanced mental and emotional state. Pets bring a new set of responsibilities, knowing how to care for and feed an animal is part that enhances responsibility.

The foundations of mindfulness include attention, intention, compassion, and awareness. All of those are things that animals bring to the table. Animal-Assisted therapy or pet therapy used by behavioral therapists refers to the use of animals as a way to help people cope with and recover from some physical and mental health conditions.
The goal of animal-assisted therapy is to improve a patient’s social, emotional, or cognitive functioning so that animals can be useful for motivational effectiveness for the patients.

Shirley Prathyusha, a behavioral therapist, says, “animals have the ability to understand human emotions and mood. Animal-Assisted therapy is generally used by behavioral psychologists for the patients to bond with animals and open up slowly. The patient’s bond with the animal enhances their overall mood and reduces aggression during the sessions.”

The therapy works because animals can cross over language, age, social class, and sensory skin barriers. Patient’s bond with an animal in these cases may motivate the person to continue therapy, and boost their mood. “The only exception in this therapy is when the patient is allergic or phobic to animals is when this therapy doesn’t work,” says Prathyusha.

Animals can provide a sense of calm, comfort, or safety and divert attention away from stressful situations. Advocates of animal-assisted therapy say that developing a bond with an animal can help people develop a better sense of self-worth and trust, stabilize their emotions, and improve their communication, self-regulation, and socialization skills.