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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks.

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Speaker 2: That'd be time to catch up with clinical psychologist Google Sutherland,

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Speaker 2: who is all with us this morning, held of doogal

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Speaker 2: curleder Jack.

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Speaker 3: And I'm trying to think of a segue between that

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Speaker 3: little section about the snail and the topic for today.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean your topic for today is whether or

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Speaker 2: not pets are good for us? And I suppose that

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Speaker 2: need technically counts, doesn't he?

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Speaker 3: I guess you, yep, yep, I'm sure somebody.

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Speaker 2: I'm more convinced.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure somebody get yeah, yeah, you know, different strokes

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Speaker 3: for different folks on the job.

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Speaker 2: They'll be able to argue that the average snail the

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Speaker 2: right the right spiral snail probably doesn't count as a

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Speaker 2: as a pet, but given needs spirals on his left

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Speaker 2: hand side, maybe maybe he didn't count.

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Speaker 3: Maybe something special absolutely.

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Speaker 2: But it's funny because the sort of the general common thought,

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Speaker 2: like the mainstream kind of theory would I would have been,

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Speaker 2: I thought that pets are good for your mental health.

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Speaker 2: Having a pet means having a companion, it means getting outside,

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Speaker 2: it means all sorts of good things. But you're looking

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Speaker 2: at new research this morning that suggests the reality is

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Speaker 2: a little more nuanced than that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think nuanced is a good word. There

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Speaker 3: certainly is evidence to show that having a pet is

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Speaker 3: good for your well being. There's a one of my

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Speaker 3: favorite studies to quote, they were looking at levels of oxytocin.

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Speaker 3: So oxytocin is the thing that makes you feel good,

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Speaker 3: you know, if you have a positive interaction with somebody,

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Speaker 3: and they measured it in dogs and in owners, and

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Speaker 3: if you looked into your dog's eyes for a minute,

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Speaker 3: then both the dog and the human got a hit

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Speaker 3: of oxytocin. And interestingly, the comparison group for that study

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Speaker 3: was dogs, dogs in their owners and wolves and their

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Speaker 3: owners and people that owned wolves looked in their wolve's

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Speaker 3: eyes for a minute and nobody got a hit of

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Speaker 3: oxytocin out of that one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But so you know, there's certainly evidence to show that

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Speaker 3: having a dog, or not just a dog, any sort

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Speaker 3: of pet can be can be good for your well being.

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Speaker 3: But for some people it's actually not. And you know,

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Speaker 3: you often hear these terrible stories on the radio or

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Speaker 3: on the news around you know, animals being abandoned, and

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Speaker 3: it was a particular thing, you know, post COVID people.

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Speaker 3: A lot of people got pets during COVID and for

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Speaker 3: some people it actually makes them feel worse. And so

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Speaker 3: it's a really I think important thing to think about,

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Speaker 3: particularly before you're getting an animal. Actually is this going

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Speaker 3: to help us as a family or is this actually

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Speaker 3: going to be something that in the long term isn't

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Speaker 3: actually all that helpful for us.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's intriguing area. So so to talk to us

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Speaker 2: a little bit more about some of those downsides and

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Speaker 2: what and what people perhaps hadn't anticipated, because obviously it's

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Speaker 2: a huge commitment.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and so that's one of them, is that sort

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Speaker 3: of level of commitment and the financial kind of stress.

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Speaker 3: It's another it's another mouth to feed, literally, it's another

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Speaker 3: thing to do. You have to take them for a

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Speaker 3: walk or excersize them if they're a dog. And obviously

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Speaker 3: the bigger the pet, the more of this can be

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Speaker 3: a bit of a burden. You've got to think about

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Speaker 3: what they're going to do during the day and who's

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Speaker 3: going to look after them, So that that's a bit

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Speaker 3: of a that's that can be a bit of a burden. Also,

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Speaker 3: are those people who have what we call insecure attachments.

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Speaker 3: So an attachment is sort of describes the quality of

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Speaker 3: relationship that you have with with somebody, and we typically

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Speaker 3: think about attachments as infants and the appearance that that's

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Speaker 3: the that's the sort of standard that we think about

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Speaker 3: with attachments, but you can obviously have attachments with your

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Speaker 3: pets as well, and there's a thing called insecure attachment

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Speaker 3: where the insecurity is around you know, leaving them, departing

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Speaker 3: from them is filled with anxiety and you're not quite

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Speaker 3: sure what's going to happen and will they be there

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Speaker 3: when you come back. And for those people actually loneliness

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Speaker 3: in a poorer sense of well being because you spend

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Speaker 3: a lot of time thinking and worrying about it. Are

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Speaker 3: they going to be okay? And it becomes a burden

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Speaker 3: and and that be matched by animals too. Animals can

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Speaker 3: also have that sort of attachment. And you know, you

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Speaker 3: hear about particularly dogs that wine and yelp during the

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Speaker 3: day because they're lonely essentially, So those are useful things

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Speaker 3: to think about, sort of on the downside, at least

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Speaker 3: for getting a pet.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so what about the upsides? What about the things

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Speaker 2: that will know the things you can do the things

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Speaker 2: you can be mindful of the kind of dynamics that

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Speaker 2: make pet ownership a really beneficial thing for both parties.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think certainly. Well, there are a couple

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Speaker 3: of things. So one is being sort of mindfully interacting

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Speaker 3: with your pets. So that's sort of taking time to

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Speaker 3: actually spend time with them and be with them and

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Speaker 3: you know, just lay some attention on them really and

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Speaker 3: whether that's active playing with them or patting them, petting them,

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Speaker 3: or taking them for a walk, that that can be

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Speaker 3: really helpful. And that's the theory behind you know, you hear,

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Speaker 3: we know about support animals for people with various forms

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Speaker 3: of disabilities, and that's the idea about behind those is

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Speaker 3: that it makes you feel there's a it's a sense

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Speaker 3: of companionship and you're paying attention to that. The other

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Speaker 3: interesting feature is that if you if you feel like

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Speaker 3: you have sort of some sort of shared identity with

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Speaker 3: your with your pets, then you often feel a closer

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Speaker 3: relationship with them. And you know, we have that old

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Speaker 3: old adage around if you know, owners look like their pets,

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Speaker 3: and so if you you know, if you look like

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Speaker 3: your pet and you identify with them, you're probably going

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Speaker 3: to get along a lot better with them.

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Speaker 2: That's amazing saying if you look like your pet you

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Speaker 2: get along better.

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Speaker 3: Well that well you could do that, yeah, because you

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Speaker 3: identify more with them. It's like, oh, they're a bit

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Speaker 3: like me, and I kind of identify it. And which

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Speaker 3: is sort of interesting because I was pulling this together

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Speaker 3: and actually one of our dogs is right at my

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Speaker 3: feet at the moment, and we've got little miniature snauss,

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Speaker 3: you know, the black and white ones with the big

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Speaker 3: eyebrows and the big and I don't know quite what

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Speaker 3: they says about me, but we certainly love our dogs.

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Speaker 3: But maybe perhaps I do look like them a little bit.

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure.

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Speaker 2: I think you go a miniature Schnauzer over like a

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Speaker 2: like a bulldog or a pug or something like that.

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Speaker 3: I think so, yeah, yeah, I think that's I think

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Speaker 3: Schnauzers more me than something like that.

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Speaker 2: Lutely, Oh that is fascinating, Thank you so much. Doogle

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Speaker 2: great like you say, But a nuance in there, which

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Speaker 2: is interesting and just like kind of underscores the importance

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Speaker 2: of thinking very carefully before making an investment in a

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Speaker 2: pete because yeah, some people don't find it's all cracked

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Speaker 2: out to be thank you so much, really appreciate it.

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Speaker 2: That is Google Sutherland from Umbrella Wellbeing with us this morning.

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