Resilience Through Dog Ownership and its Applications

This paper explores the means by which dog ownership can provide owners with increased resilience. Dog ownership can lead to: reduced physiological markers of stress, increased physical activity, attachment bonds, and social support. Each of these mechanisms encourages increased resilience, and together, the positive effects on dog owners have the potential to be quite powerful. Working dogs such as certified therapy dogs (CTDs) and service dogs also provide humans with resilience through similar mechanisms. For people for whom dog ownership is not a viable option, including elderly populations, Animal Assisted Activities (AAA) with a CTD can provide social facilitation and companionship. For combat veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), service dogs can provide attachment bonds and increased social facilitation and help their handlers manage symptoms of PTSD. Future research is needed to more fully understand the nature of connections between dogs and their owners, and how dog ownership\u27s positive effects can be extrapolated to the larger field of animal-human interaction