For ages, pets have helped us handle stress and center ourselves. Whether employed as therapy animals or simply providing us with companionship and unconditional love, pets ease our minds and souls.

Pet owners have long suspected that our furry friends are perhaps more closely related to us than they look. They seem almost perfectly in sync with our every thought and feeling, so much so that it sometimes feels as if they can speak our language. And to a degree they can! Studies have shown that dogs can understand more than 100 words of human language.

Although pets will never have the opportunity to tell us what’s really on their minds, a study by the MTA-ELTA Comparative Ethology Research Group in Hungary (recently published in Scientific American) confirms that dog and human brains process the sounds and emotions of others very similarly. In fact, dogs are wired in much the same way we are and can understand what we feel based on the sounds we make. The affection and deep emotional connection
we have with our pets is real and it flows both ways.

HEALTHIER LIFESTYLES

Knowing that our pets have the ability to sense emotion and perceive stress, we can appreciate how our four-legged pals might benefit, both physically and emotionally, from many of the same health and wellness treatments we use.

The pet wellness industry has remained one of the most recession-proof shopping sectors. Perhaps it’s due to mounting acknowledgement of the importance of a healthy lifestyle, a refocusing on prevention over intervention, and a growing interest in integrative medicine. Whatever the cause, pet owners have become increasingly aware of the need to create healthier,
less stressful lifestyles for their companions, too. …Click here for full Publication Summer 2014