RELATIONSHIP TO ANIMALS
Keeping animals has emotional, spiritual and health benefits. Our relationships to animals pre-date history. Very young children are deeply interested in animals both real and imagined. Worldwide, the first human art represents animals almost exclusively.
|
|
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) web site says in part:
Throughout history animals have played a significant role in human customs, legends, and religions. Primitive people found that human-animal relationships were important to their very survival, and petkeeping was common in hunter-gatherer societies. In our own time, the great increase in pet ownership may reflect a largely urban population's often unsatisfied need for intimacy, nurturance, and contact with nature...
The NIH has documented the carbiovascular effects of contact with animals. These include decreased blood pressure, chlosterol levels and triglyceride levels. These effects don't even have to come from keeping pets - short visits with animals improve the health of hospital patients. Contact with animals also benefits the elderly, developing children, and the social lives of adults. The National Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta's research confirm all of this.
Dogs and cats aren't always practical for urban families. We go on many outings to places where dogs aren't welcome. We also travel a lot. We're as busy as any other family. Besides, the richest experiences with animals include some element of the animal being useful to us and not just dependent on us. Horses should be ridden, cows should be milked, and dogs should have some job to do. Unless you live on a farm, it can be difficult to integrate your pets into your life this way. That's why we keep chickens. They don't prevent us from leaving home, they eat our leftovers, and they give us eggs and manure for fertilizer.