Keeping pets makes you more sociable!
If you want to get along with your neighbours then go ahead and get a pet, preferably a dog.
If you crave for a social life and want to get along better with your neighbours then go ahead and get a pet, preferably a dog.
According to ABC Online, a new Australian study has found that pet owners tend to interact more positively with their neighbours and wider community, as they are bound to be outdoors more often.
Lisa Wood, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia, did the research as part of her PhD, publishing the results in the latest issue of the journal Social Science and Medicine.
Wood and her colleagues conducted a random telephone survey of 339 adults from three suburbs in the Western Australian capital Perth, asking questions about pet ownership and social interaction.
They found that pet owners were more likely than people who didn't own a pet to acknowledge and exchange informal greetings with people from their neighbourhood, often while they were out with their pet, and to exchange favours with their neighbours.
Dog owners, in particular, seemed to enjoy good social contact.
For example, more than half indicated that they had got to know people in their suburb as a result of their pet, and more than four-fifths talked to other pet owners when they walked their dog.
"Most research with pets and health has been done on an individual level, such as pets as therapy," Wood says. "What we're saying is that there seems to be benefit above and beyond the individual; that the community as a whole benefits."
Wood and her colleagues write that the research is the first to look at pet ownership and social capital, the notion of building cooperation and trust within communities.
In practical terms, the research shows owning a pet may be more than a simply prompting of "hellos" on the street and requests to borrow the lawnmower.
It suggests owning a pet also motivates people to walk and use local parks, providing opportunities to meet new people; acts a catalyst for taking part in community activities; and as a protector of mental health, which influences the ability to take part in community events and interact with local people.
