Not everyone may have a pet, but for various reasons, a pet can be incredibly beneficial for one’s mental health that others just may not understand.

Having a pet such as a cat, dog, hamster, or even a fish, adds a huge responsibility to one’s life since the pet is alive and needs to be cared for. Having to feed, entertain, and wash a pet can improve and overcome laziness because having to care for a pet gives the pet owner a mandatory chore. This chore eventually becomes a daily activity they might do without realizing. Having a more active pet, like a dog, helps even more with our physical health since dogs have to be taken on a walk one to two times a day, especially if the dog is still very young. They benefit us mostly with exercise and staying fit when it comes to walking them since they do need to be walked for a good amount of time and some dogs need to be walked maybe two to three times a day.

People who live with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety or physical disabilities can also benefit from owning a pet. For all of these illnesses, there are service animals, mainly dogs and cats, who are trained to help a person with these specific illnesses. Although owning a cat is easier to maintain since they are smaller, take up less space, and require much less attention than a dog does, it is ideal to own a service dog when it comes to helping physically disabled people. They can assist in pushing wheelchairs and guiding the blind. 

Unfortunately, having a service dog can sometimes be too much to handle, as a dog takes up more space in a house or apartment. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, “over 61 million people in the United States live with disabilities, yet less than 1% of this group are benefiting from being teamed with a service dog.” 

Although most people who need one choose not to have a service animal, they should because they might not have a nurse or caretaker with them at all times. So having a substitute can help them more with daily tasks. Besides helping with physical disability, a service animal helps with physical health.

Young children can reap benefits from pets as well. They can learn responsibility just like adults, but they also can grow up with a lower risk for allergies. This is because having a pet with fur helps kids grow up with more tolerance to animal fur.

I have had a few different pets and I even grew up with a dog, so I believe being exposed to a pet helped me in the long run because I’m not allergic to animal fur. Having a pet also helped me become more independent and responsible, especially when I had several pets at once. More people should look into having pets to help them in life or even just to keep them company.