Speaker 1: Pushkin. The first day I saw Georgia, she was about
Speaker 1: a six month old puppy, and she just had these
Speaker 1: amazing big pointed ears and her brindle coat, and I
Speaker 1: had never seen anything like her. This is Motorsports reporter
Speaker 1: Laurette Nichol. It was magnetic. As soon as I saw her,
Speaker 1: I knew that she was meant for me, And the
Speaker 1: exact thought I had in my head is that's my puppy.
Speaker 1: These days, the pair are pretty much inseparable. In fact,
Speaker 1: Georgia was happily sniffing around Lorette's feet as we talked
Speaker 1: over Zoom, George, do you want to come up here?
Speaker 1: She's being shy all of a sudden, But it wasn't
Speaker 1: obvious back when the pair first met that they would
Speaker 1: even have a chance to be together. The first and
Speaker 1: perhaps most obvious obstacle to their union was the huge
Speaker 1: chain length fence that separated with them. Georgia was a
Speaker 1: street puppy. A neighbor had found her and was keeping
Speaker 1: her temporarily penned up until he could find a way
Speaker 1: to get the stray off his hands. I just kept
Speaker 1: explaining to him how special I thought that she was,
Speaker 1: and he finally told me, he's like, I'm taking her
Speaker 1: to the pound because she keeps running away. Laurette hated
Speaker 1: the thought of Georgia going off to a shelter in
Speaker 1: some unknown future, but she also wasn't feeling ready to
Speaker 1: adopt a new puppy. In the end, it was Georgia
Speaker 1: who made her feelings known. I was making breakfast. I
Speaker 1: had to go get something from another room, and when
Speaker 1: I came back, this nine month old puppy was, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden standing in my kitchen. Lorette responsibly returned
Speaker 1: the puppy, who promptly escaped again and again. So the
Speaker 1: third time that I put her back and she came back,
Speaker 1: I just put a note on my neighbor's gate saying
Speaker 1: I have Georgia. Please call me. And that's when I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I really love this dog. Can I keep her?
Speaker 1: And he said yet, Just like that, that was the
Speaker 1: beginning of our life together. George's persistence had finally paid off,
Speaker 1: but Lorette's reluctance to take on a pet had been genuine.
Speaker 1: When the pair began their journey together, Laurette was going
Speaker 1: through an awful health situation. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
Speaker 1: I had to go through six rounds of chemotherapy and
Speaker 1: twenty five rounds of radiation therapy, and the radiation really
Speaker 1: took a toll on my body, and so I needed
Speaker 1: to recover from it, not only physically but mentally. The
Speaker 1: new puppy didn't become the burden Lorette was initially expecting. Instead,
Speaker 1: Lorette describes Georgia as her savior. There's some days that
Speaker 1: I can really talk about it, and then some days
Speaker 1: that it's a challenge, and sometimes it sneaks up on me.
Speaker 1: Which is doing right now. But I think for me
Speaker 1: on the days where I just thought this is hard,
Speaker 1: this is challenging, I don't know if I can do this,
Speaker 1: I just I want to go back to sleep. On
Speaker 1: those days, Georgia walked in the room and she's like, hey, mom,
Speaker 1: I love you, and it gives you that little bit
Speaker 1: of Okay, yep, let's push through. I get this. We
Speaker 1: sometimes take for granted just how much support our pets
Speaker 1: and particularly our dogs, offer us and just how much
Speaker 1: their companionship can bring us joy. Loreca and George's story
Speaker 1: shows the true power of the human canine bond. The
Speaker 1: research shows that there are evidence based ways to maximize
Speaker 1: the benefits we get from our dogs, and that there
Speaker 1: may be ways to achieve those animal induced benefits even
Speaker 1: if you don't have a pet of your own. But
Speaker 1: the science shows that the happiness dividend dogs and other
Speaker 1: companion animals provide is often more complicated than we expect.
Speaker 1: If we're not careful, we can end it for only
Speaker 1: impede the happiness boost we could be getting from our
Speaker 1: furry friends. Our minds are constantly telling us what to
Speaker 1: do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong?
Speaker 1: What if our minds are to us, leading us away
Speaker 1: from what will really make us happy. The good news
Speaker 1: is the understanding the science of the mind can point
Speaker 1: us all back in the right direction. You're listening to
Speaker 1: the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie Santos. Now, I'm guessing
Speaker 1: that most of my podcast listeners know will be best
Speaker 1: for my work on happiness and the class I teach
Speaker 1: on the science of well being. But long before I
Speaker 1: became a happiness expert, I had a slightly different psychology career.
Speaker 1: Gath Hey Bailey, welcome. I studied animals and how they think,
Speaker 1: and that means I spent a lot of time around
Speaker 1: cute pooches. Welcome to the Canine Cognitions. Back in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: I set up Yale's first Canine Cognition Center. My students
Speaker 1: and I bring dogs from the community into the center
Speaker 1: for sure experiments and study how canines make sense of
Speaker 1: the world. Do you want to search in the box?
Speaker 1: Are you ready to search? For? You did such a
Speaker 1: good job. If you live near Yale campus, you should
Speaker 1: sign your dog up for a visit. It's fun and
Speaker 1: your pop will even get a doggy version of an
Speaker 1: Ivy League diploma for their efforts. Bailey, do you want
Speaker 1: to see your degree? Do you want to see your degree? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: you're so proud. Good job, You're so proud. Yes. My
Speaker 1: kenine research has taught me in my students a ton
Speaker 1: about what dogs know about the world and the unique
Speaker 1: way that they're able to learn from their human companions.
Speaker 1: But anecdotally, running the center has also taught me a
Speaker 1: lot about the connection between dogs and happiness. The dog
Speaker 1: Lab is one of the most popular spots on campus
Speaker 1: for students to do research, mostly because they really love
Speaker 1: hanging out with the test subjects. I know theo so weird.
Speaker 1: It's so weird, microhod. My student assistants always walk into
Speaker 1: the lab seeming a bit frazzled and stressed about the
Speaker 1: usual challenges of college life, but they leave their canine
Speaker 1: shifts in a completely different emotional space. Watching these transformations
Speaker 1: got me curious, why is it that dogs and other
Speaker 1: companion animals affect us so much? Sadly, the specifics on
Speaker 1: how we built such a strong bond with dogs is
Speaker 1: pretty much lost to time. Many canine researchers hypothesize that
Speaker 1: it all started tens of thousands of years ago, when
Speaker 1: a group of relatively chill wolves began following our ancestors around,
Speaker 1: eating their trash, an inching closer and closer to their campfires.
Speaker 1: Those ancient canaids were the first step on the evolutionary
Speaker 1: path to the cuddly, domesticated dogs we know today. But
Speaker 1: our relationship with these ancient pooches was very different from
Speaker 1: the one we have with our modern pets. I had
Speaker 1: some sort of function in terms of helping as hunt
Speaker 1: or gardening or protecting us in some way. This is
Speaker 1: Carrie Westgarth, a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool,
Speaker 1: But as times gone on, they've become much more integrated
Speaker 1: into least physically into our family homes rather than living outside,
Speaker 1: but I also think much more emotionally into our family
Speaker 1: lives as well. Carry As an expert on the emerging
Speaker 1: academic field of human animal interaction, she's the author of
Speaker 1: a new book called The Happy Dog Owner, Finding Health
Speaker 1: and Happiness with the Help of Your Dog. If you
Speaker 1: have a dog yourself, you probably have some very strong
Speaker 1: intuitions about the effect that that creature has on your life. Generally,
Speaker 1: but surprisingly relatively little scientific research had explored this question,
Speaker 1: at least not until the early nineteen eighties. There was
Speaker 1: a particular study by Erica Friedman where she looked at
Speaker 1: people who'd had a heart attack and then looked at
Speaker 1: their survival one year on, and after adjusting for a
Speaker 1: few other different factors about these people, she noticed that
Speaker 1: the people that own pets were much more likely to
Speaker 1: have survived. The results were striking. Pet owners were four
Speaker 1: times more likely to survive after a heart attack than
Speaker 1: non pet owners, But there were a few problems with
Speaker 1: Friedman's initial study. First, the samples was pretty small, only
Speaker 1: ninety or so patients were examined, and second, it was
Speaker 1: only a correlational study. To truly establish that pets actually
Speaker 1: cause a psychological benefit, you need to do an experiment,
Speaker 1: and that's just what a different group of researchers did
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen eighties. They measured blood pressure and
Speaker 1: heart rate and a group of college students while they
Speaker 1: were petting a dog, talking to a dog, talking to
Speaker 1: a human, or just relaxing without a dog present. The
Speaker 1: researchers found that students assigned to stroke the dog had
Speaker 1: the lowest readings. Interacting with a dog, it seemed, had
Speaker 1: a causal effect on people's cardiac stress. The researchers famously
Speaker 1: christened this pattern the pet effect. But was this so
Speaker 1: called pet effect just about the petting or about the pet?
Speaker 1: Could the mere presence of a dog also reduce our
Speaker 1: heart rate and our psychological distress? Researcher Karen Allen at
Speaker 1: the University of Buffalo devised another experiment to find out.
Speaker 1: It's a really clever study, and it's one of those
Speaker 1: ones where as soon as I thought, why didn't I
Speaker 1: think of this such a cool idea, Alan and her
Speaker 1: colleagues had a group of subjects undergo different kinds of
Speaker 1: stressful events they either had to do a set of
Speaker 1: hard math problems or plunge their hands into super cold water,
Speaker 1: but the subjects were randomly assigned to endure these events
Speaker 1: with different audiences. They either had to experience the stressful
Speaker 1: situation alone with their spouse present, with their pet present,
Speaker 1: or with both their pet and their spouse present. The
Speaker 1: researchers then tested which group of subjects seemed least affected
Speaker 1: by the stress, which one completed the math test quickest
Speaker 1: with the fewest mistakes, and which one's heart rate recovered
Speaker 1: most quickly once the stressful tests were over. The answer
Speaker 1: it was the group of subjects with just their pets.
Speaker 1: When you're alone, you're fairly stressed during these tests. When
Speaker 1: you're with your spouse you're even more stressed. But when
Speaker 1: you're with your pets, you're much less stressed than you
Speaker 1: were either with your spouse or alone. It was a
Speaker 1: pretty incredible result. The researchers who published these studies were
Speaker 1: reasonably carefu interpreting their results. They only went so far
Speaker 1: as to conclude that pet owners clearly perceive their pets
Speaker 1: to be a good source of support. But this level
Speaker 1: of caution was lost on the journalists who covered this
Speaker 1: study and others like it. They're over the top. Headlines
Speaker 1: still make Carrie cringe. Your dog will make you live longer,
Speaker 1: Your dog will solve your depression. Pet owners are happier
Speaker 1: and healthier these sorts of headlines. They are only half
Speaker 1: of the story. Unfortunately, it doesn't always quite work out
Speaker 1: as the headlines make you think. And this worries me
Speaker 1: because if people are going to assume that if they
Speaker 1: get a dog, it's going to be absolutely fantastic and
Speaker 1: it's going to solve all their problems, they're going to
Speaker 1: be in for a bit of a rocky ride. Even
Speaker 1: though she's a human animal interaction expert, an experienced dog owner,
Speaker 1: and a professional trainer, Carrie is still no stranger to
Speaker 1: the rocky personal ride then a new pet can, cause
Speaker 1: she experienced it firsthand when Roxy, a new pug puppy,
Speaker 1: became part of her family. Though small in size, the
Speaker 1: impact Roxy had on Carrie's home was massive. It's complete
Speaker 1: upheaval to your life and I pretty much had an
Speaker 1: emotional breakdown. This thing is crying, it is biting, it
Speaker 1: is pooping, it is peddling. Peddling is a quaint British
Speaker 1: way of describing Roxy's rather unquaint habit of urinating all
Speaker 1: over Carrie's house. The chaos took a negative toll on
Speaker 1: Carrie's while being and even began threatening the health of
Speaker 1: her human relationships. And at one point I said to
Speaker 1: my husband, I'm just going to have to send her back.
Speaker 1: I can't deal with this, just I felt so sick
Speaker 1: all the time. I was so stressed out about it,
Speaker 1: And obviously he was very upset, and he said he'd
Speaker 1: never forgive me of a center back. In the end,
Speaker 1: Carrie did not, in fact send Roxy back. You look
Speaker 1: pretty cuddled up with Roxy right now. I'll say she's
Speaker 1: my baby. It's definitely my baby. But Carrie's early experience
Speaker 1: with Roxy caused her to question what she and many
Speaker 1: researchers initially thought about man's Best friend. The dogs are
Speaker 1: some magic bullet who universally have a psychological benefit for
Speaker 1: their owners. Everybody who studies this probably generally really likes
Speaker 1: animals and wants to show a positive effect because they
Speaker 1: believe that there is a positive effect of pets in
Speaker 1: our lives. Actually, what we find is that a number
Speaker 1: of studies show either no difference between people our own pets,
Speaker 1: and don't own pets, or they show that the dog owners,
Speaker 1: for example, have worse levels of depression. As Carrie looked
Speaker 1: into the scientific results more and more, she started to
Speaker 1: figure out a solution for why the existing data don't
Speaker 1: match our lay intuition the dog should be a magic
Speaker 1: bullet for happiness. The problem, she argues, is that most
Speaker 1: of the studies use a pretty black and white benchmark
Speaker 1: to work out the benefits of dog ownership, one that
Speaker 1: amounts pretty much to dog or no dog, like do
Speaker 1: you own a dog or not own a dog? Or
Speaker 1: is a dog present or is no dog present? Black
Speaker 1: and white comparisons like these miss a lot of the
Speaker 1: specific nuances that matter. Carrie has found that surprisingly few
Speaker 1: studies have explored the actual relationship people have with the
Speaker 1: pooch they own. Simple things like is your dog well behaved?
Speaker 1: How much time do you spend together? What do you
Speaker 1: do when you're hanging out? These kinds of factors tend
Speaker 1: not to be taken into account, even though they probably
Speaker 1: matter a lot in terms of the joy you're getting
Speaker 1: from your dog. When we get back from the break,
Speaker 1: we'll hear more about what Carrie discovered When factors like
Speaker 1: these were added to the empirical mix. The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: will be right back. When I was recovering from cancer,
Speaker 1: walking from the couch to the dishwasher, I was completely
Speaker 1: winded and that was about seven steps, and by the
Speaker 1: time I got to the dishwasher, I was dizzy and
Speaker 1: lightheaded and thought, Nope, I can't do this, so I
Speaker 1: had to go back to the couch. Laurette nichols relationship
Speaker 1: with her dog Georgia is a great example of the
Speaker 1: potential positive benefits that human animal interaction can provide. There's
Speaker 1: this black cancer cloud that was really really large, and
Speaker 1: Georgia came in and really helped me push through. It
Speaker 1: may seem that the huge happiness bump Laurette got from
Speaker 1: Georgia and their incredible chemistry together just happened instantly, almost
Speaker 1: as if by magic. But as I heard more of
Speaker 1: their story, I kept thinking back to what I learned
Speaker 1: from chatting with research or Carrie Westgarth. It's not just
Speaker 1: having a companion animal that improves your well being, it's
Speaker 1: the specific ways that you interact with that animal. As
Speaker 1: Laurette talked more about her day to day life with Georgia,
Speaker 1: I realized that the duo seems to naturally engage in
Speaker 1: exactly the behavior as Carrie has found, are fundamental for
Speaker 1: the happiness boosting benefits of dog ownership. The first of
Speaker 1: these behaviors one that's honestly so simple it's easy to
Speaker 1: miss how important it is is exercise. There's lots of
Speaker 1: research showing that exercise is great for our happiness. Studies
Speaker 1: show that a relatively short burst of cardio can reduce
Speaker 1: negative feelings like anxiety, tension, and depression. And whether we
Speaker 1: like it or not, on that rainy Sunday morning, our
Speaker 1: pups often forced us to get moving. They demand that
Speaker 1: we get off the couch at least for a quick stroll,
Speaker 1: even when that feels like a struggle. Laurette saw this
Speaker 1: benefit of dog ownership firsthand. She had been an active
Speaker 1: person and an avid runner before she got cancer, but
Speaker 1: when her extensive course of keimo floored her, attending to
Speaker 1: Georgia's needs was the only way Laurette could get herself
Speaker 1: safely moving again. She obviously needed to go out, and
Speaker 1: she needed walks, and so just putting her out in
Speaker 1: the backyard so she could go to the bathroom was
Speaker 1: never going to work for her, so I was able
Speaker 1: to increase my mileage safely for me and what my
Speaker 1: body allowed. And Laurette's not alone here. Carrie has seen
Speaker 1: this pattern over and over again and her work on
Speaker 1: human dog interaction, dogs tend to push us past our
Speaker 1: usual athletic threshold. She calls it exercise by stealth. All
Speaker 1: those chill evening walks add up to improve not just
Speaker 1: our physical health, but our mental health too. My research
Speaker 1: participants tell me how stress relieving that is to go out,
Speaker 1: especially that at the end of the day walk after
Speaker 1: work has finished, getting your mind free of all the
Speaker 1: stress and worries, blowing away the day walk that you
Speaker 1: do after work in particular, is what people say is
Speaker 1: is really stress relieving and helpful for the well being.
Speaker 1: Even non dog owners probably realize that it's good to
Speaker 1: get some exercise in when you're feeling stressed. But even
Speaker 1: when we know the benefits, a nightly walk can be
Speaker 1: a hard habit to keep up with, especially on busy nights.
Speaker 1: But you don't really have a choice when your pooch
Speaker 1: is staring at his leash, excited to get going. And
Speaker 1: that's why so many studies fine that on average, dog
Speaker 1: owners get more exercise. In one UK study, Carrie found
Speaker 1: that dog owners were four times more likely than non
Speaker 1: owner to meet the health guideline of getting one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty minutes of exercise in a week. People who
Speaker 1: don't have a dog just don't seem to move as much.
Speaker 1: Carrie had this unfortunate pattern hit close to home when
Speaker 1: her father's beloved dog and walking companion passed away. So
Speaker 1: I text him and said, you know, if you're thinking
Speaker 1: about getting another dog yet, and he replied, not yet.
Speaker 1: I'm not ready. But in the meantime, there's no reason
Speaker 1: to go for a walk. And my dad lives in
Speaker 1: the middle of beautiful countryside with all the reasons in
Speaker 1: the world. He's retired, it's all the reasons in the
Speaker 1: world to go for a walk, but not having that
Speaker 1: dog there just made it really hard for him to
Speaker 1: want to be motivated to literally walk out of his
Speaker 1: door around his beautiful countryside. But even though dogs make
Speaker 1: it easier to get the mental health benefits that come
Speaker 1: from exercise, Carrie has shown that this only works if
Speaker 1: you actually take a walk with your dog, and sadly,
Speaker 1: many dog owners don't always do this, which explains the
Speaker 1: fact that merely owning a dog isn't always enough for
Speaker 1: getting the angial health benefits they provide. But Carrie has
Speaker 1: found that on the days when you do manage to
Speaker 1: make it out for a walk, you often get more
Speaker 1: pleasure simply by having your dog at your side. There's
Speaker 1: something different with going for a walk with a dog
Speaker 1: to going for a walk without a dog that can
Speaker 1: make it extra special. The special sauce that dogs bring
Speaker 1: to our walks together is actually the second factor that
Speaker 1: allows our pets to boost our well being. Mindfulness, that
Speaker 1: ability to be in the present moment, to savor and
Speaker 1: enjoy the here and now. If you've listen to other
Speaker 1: episodes of the Happiness Lab, you know that lots of
Speaker 1: scientific work shows that being present is a great way
Speaker 1: to boost your happiness. There are lots of ways to
Speaker 1: experience more mindfulness, but having a happy pet around makes
Speaker 1: that easier because our pups are pretty much the most
Speaker 1: mindful creatures around. A stick, a puddle, a patch of grass,
Speaker 1: a tiny cookie crumb dropped on the floor, they're all
Speaker 1: worthy of intense interest, attention, and curiosity. Carrie has found
Speaker 1: that we can allow our dogs excitement to bring us
Speaker 1: back to the here and now too. Dogs are just
Speaker 1: great at doing this because you can be absorbed in
Speaker 1: your phone or thinking about a problem that you've got
Speaker 1: to solve, and then your dog shoves its head in
Speaker 1: your lap, shoves your phone out the way, and shoves
Speaker 1: their face off in your face, and you can do
Speaker 1: nothing but respond to that. And when you stroke, there
Speaker 1: is those sensations. My dog has have very velvety ears
Speaker 1: one of my dogs that sort of tacks out that sensation.
Speaker 1: It brings you really into the present moment, which is
Speaker 1: what I love about dogs. But we only get the
Speaker 1: mindfulness benefit dogs provide if we actually allow ourselves to
Speaker 1: pay attention. If you keep your face buried in your
Speaker 1: smartphone when your dog is playing fetch, or you spend
Speaker 1: your walk ruminating about some upcoming meeting, you simply won't
Speaker 1: get the happiness boost that mindfulness can provide. But if
Speaker 1: we're willing to put in some work, dogs can help
Speaker 1: us to help ourselves even if we're having a particularly
Speaker 1: tough time. You imagine, if you were suffering from depression
Speaker 1: and you're really stopping to get out of bed in
Speaker 1: the morning, you've got that animal relying on you probably
Speaker 1: jumping on your face trying to get you out of bed.
Speaker 1: They weren't feeding, they weren't walking, and you can get
Speaker 1: that sense of mastery and purpose that I think is
Speaker 1: really important for that fulfillment that is so important for
Speaker 1: our well being. I go into things like dog training classes,
Speaker 1: you can feel like you're really achieving something with your dog,
Speaker 1: and that can really help with your self esteem. And
Speaker 1: this gets to a third behavior that Carrie has found
Speaker 1: is necessary to engage in if you want all the
Speaker 1: benefits that dog ownership can offer. Training. Carrie's book goes
Speaker 1: through case after case in which an untrained pup can
Speaker 1: be a recipe for misery. This is yet another spot
Speaker 1: where Lorette and her pup, Georgia, are great examples. Laurette
Speaker 1: certainly didn't skimp on Georgie's training or her socialization. She
Speaker 1: really stretched my ability as well because she made me
Speaker 1: realize how much again mental stimulation that she needed. You know,
Speaker 1: she was already getting a lot of love, great food, exercise,
Speaker 1: but we needed to work on the high fives, and
Speaker 1: we needed to work on the sits and the downs,
Speaker 1: but also take her out into public and that's where
Speaker 1: she really seemed to thrive. Georgie's love of people, coupled
Speaker 1: with the great training she got from Lorette, meant that
Speaker 1: she was naturally drawn to the fourth behavior that Carrie
Speaker 1: has found is necessary for getting the biggest positive benefit
Speaker 1: we can from dog ownership, social connection. We use our
Speaker 1: pups to lead us into new forms of human human interaction.
Speaker 1: Dogs are a social lubucant in that they're a bit
Speaker 1: of an icebreaker. Oh what a lovely dog you've got there?
Speaker 1: Can I stroke it? What a cute dog? Where to
Speaker 1: get it from? What? Breedes it? I get us that
Speaker 1: with my dogs all the time. Research shows that the
Speaker 1: simple act of striking up a conversation with a stranger
Speaker 1: is a great way to philip our leaky happiness tires.
Speaker 1: As one of my former guests, psychologist Nick Eppley, once
Speaker 1: put it, dogs naturally cause us to chat, smile, and
Speaker 1: interact more with the people we run into the importance
Speaker 1: of this final beneficial behavior. Using your pooch to increase
Speaker 1: your social connection is the big reason I wanted to
Speaker 1: speak to Lorette for this episode. You see, Lorette found
Speaker 1: a way to turn her outings with Georgia into occasions
Speaker 1: that brought her entire local community together. It all started
Speaker 1: before Laurette got sick, when she had a somewhat crazy
Speaker 1: idea Once upon a time, I saw a motorcycle rider
Speaker 1: in a sidecar with a dog. At that moment, I thought,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what I want to do. That dream came
Speaker 1: true years later on Lorette's fortieth birthday when she bought
Speaker 1: herself a bike with a sidecar. It was a big, noisy,
Speaker 1: vintage looking thing that she instantly fell in love with.
Speaker 1: But would Georgia take to this weird new ride. Would
Speaker 1: she be okay dawning a pair of dog goggles or
Speaker 1: I guess doggles. She just jumped straight into the bike.
Speaker 1: I didn't ask her, I didn't pat the seat. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to push it on her because I thought
Speaker 1: if I scare her then she won't ride. But she
Speaker 1: just knew, she yes, knew that this was going to
Speaker 1: be something so special that she and I got to
Speaker 1: do together. And I need a word that's bigger than
Speaker 1: fun because and I'll be totally honest, I know when
Speaker 1: my little town it's called oldtown, is the busiest, so
Speaker 1: I will go cruise for attention at the high points
Speaker 1: of the day, because it's just so much fun and
Speaker 1: it kind of snaps people out of their own little bubble.
Speaker 1: We'll cruise into oldtown at brunchtime on Sunday. Everyone sees
Speaker 1: and kind of hears the bike because it sounds totally different.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, I can see it
Speaker 1: on their face when they realize there's a dog with
Speaker 1: doggles and a red handkerchief just enjoying her best life,
Speaker 1: and their face lights up. They grab their phones, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'll wave to everybody and talk to them and say,
Speaker 1: good morning, how are you. This is Georgia, and it's
Speaker 1: just yeah. You can see the parents tap the kids
Speaker 1: and point the kid's eyes in the directions of Georgia,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, it's so difficult to talk about
Speaker 1: the reaction because it's so much joy from other people
Speaker 1: realizing that this motorcyclist and her dog are just living
Speaker 1: their best life together. And when Laurette and Georgia are
Speaker 1: done making friends with all the locals on main Street,
Speaker 1: they head off to the open road together. And that's
Speaker 1: where Laurette was able to achieve the final benefit. We
Speaker 1: can get from our dogs a sense of purpose before
Speaker 1: her cancer cloud took over. Lorette was incredibly driven, someone
Speaker 1: with lots of aspirations and goals. It was hard for
Speaker 1: her to be stuck home for so long, feeling listless
Speaker 1: and lost in tough moments. The guilt of that period
Speaker 1: still weighs heavily on her mind. When you have so
Speaker 1: many months of feeling like stuck in neutral, it's really
Speaker 1: challenging when I start really beating myself up, when that
Speaker 1: inner mean girl starts ping ponging and just saying you're
Speaker 1: not doing enough. The job that you've done isn't up
Speaker 1: to par I can take Georgia out on the bike
Speaker 1: and it all goes away, That all goes away, and
Speaker 1: so for me, it's it's so important for my mental
Speaker 1: health to have that really deep connection with her and
Speaker 1: it shuts that mean girl up for a couple hours too.
Speaker 1: We all have that mean girl. Y'all need our Georgia's.
Speaker 1: Laurette's living proof that there are happiness benefits to getting
Speaker 1: a dog if you put in a little work. It
Speaker 1: doesn't require buying a vintage sidecar and a pair of doggles,
Speaker 1: but to see real benefits, you need to get out
Speaker 1: and walk your pup, to mindfully be more present when
Speaker 1: you're out, to connect with the humans around you, and
Speaker 1: to notice that sense of purpose that you get from
Speaker 1: having a creature who needs you. In theory, all of
Speaker 1: these practices should be easy to do, but Carrie has
Speaker 1: found that a surprising number of dog owners don't always
Speaker 1: hit the bar. You can't get the benefit of a blissful,
Speaker 1: socially enriched walk if you never take your dog out
Speaker 1: of the house, or if you're untrained pup snaps and
Speaker 1: snarls at everyone passing by, And that is the big
Speaker 1: insight of this episode. The benefits of being a dog
Speaker 1: owner come less from the dog and more from you.
Speaker 1: In the end, you're the one that needs to put
Speaker 1: in the training and exercise and presence, which is actually
Speaker 1: kind of good news in a way, because I know
Speaker 1: tons of people who would love to get the happiness
Speaker 1: boost that dogs provide, but live somewhere where they're not
Speaker 1: allowed to have a pup, or who have allergies that
Speaker 1: make living with a dog impossible, or who just aren't
Speaker 1: in the right financial or emotional place to start caring
Speaker 1: for a new pooch. And let's face it, there are
Speaker 1: also people who are just not into pets. They'd surely
Speaker 1: also love to enjoy some of the mental health benefits
Speaker 1: of dog ownership, but maybe we choose to do so
Speaker 1: without the fur and slobber. When we return from the break,
Speaker 1: we'll see that non dog owners can also get some
Speaker 1: of the joy that Laurette gets from Georgia. We'll hear
Speaker 1: how one educator has found ways to help teach these
Speaker 1: practices to her students, and how she's used the important
Speaker 1: inspiration dogs provide to help teens develop new well being practices,
Speaker 1: ones that will hopefully keep going strong even when there's
Speaker 1: no pooch present. We'll learn how she did that when
Speaker 1: the Happiness Lab returns in a moment. I grew up
Speaker 1: with all kinds of animals, snakes, lizards, hamsters, gerbils. This
Speaker 1: is Linda A. Dante, a psychiatrist based in Hanover, New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: and I really believe when we work with animals and
Speaker 1: we start to see the world through the perspective of
Speaker 1: a creature that is not us, that is the most
Speaker 1: poignant lesson for empathy. Linda has long recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of lessons like these, especially for young people who struggle
Speaker 1: with their mental health. I started using the term walking wounded.
Speaker 1: You know of the student who excels, the student who
Speaker 1: others envy because they seem to be able to do
Speaker 1: it all, and then goes into college and crashes. But
Speaker 1: Linda's biggest glimpse into the team mental health crisis came
Speaker 1: from experiences closer to home. Linda serves as the community
Speaker 1: educator at Hanover High, the school her two daughters attended.
Speaker 1: I would say, hands down, it's a high pressure school.
Speaker 1: I think there's you know, having Dartmouth College nearby, having
Speaker 1: a lot of parents who are either professors or physicians
Speaker 1: at the local medical center. You see students feeling the
Speaker 1: pressure of you know, the grades, and you know, wanting
Speaker 1: to be outstanding, and this is the trap, right outstanding
Speaker 1: and everything. Linda had the same experience interacting with the striving,
Speaker 1: stressed out students at Hanover High as I did in
Speaker 1: my role as head of college at Yale. Like me,
Speaker 1: she hated seeing what her learners were going through emotionally,
Speaker 1: and like me, she wanted to figure out better ways
Speaker 1: to teach her students evidence strategies they could use to
Speaker 1: feel better. But unlike me, Linda worried that a typical
Speaker 1: positive psychology curriculum might be a bit boring for students
Speaker 1: whose attention spans were already being pulled in so many directions.
Speaker 1: I've taught high school students long enough to know that
Speaker 1: it doesn't take much time for them to glaze over
Speaker 1: and mentally leaves the room if you're just talking at them.
Speaker 1: So Linda decided to get creative. She partnered with her colleague,
Speaker 1: Linda Danellec, an educational assistant at the high school, to
Speaker 1: create a totally new course. The class the pair came
Speaker 1: up with, and one that I absolutely wish I had
Speaker 1: thought of myself, was called Canine University What I Can
Speaker 1: Learn from My Dog. We were going to teach wellness
Speaker 1: through the Eyes of the Dog. Canine University covered many
Speaker 1: of the topics that I teach in my happiness class
Speaker 1: at Yale and ones that you've probably heard about on
Speaker 1: this podcast. Practices like social connection, gratitude, random acts of kindness, exercise,
Speaker 1: and mindfulness, all of which are known to significantly improve
Speaker 1: our happiness when practiced regular early. But Linda's students learned
Speaker 1: about these topics not from a boring lecture. They saw
Speaker 1: these behaviors modeled by some furry teachers. The two instructors
Speaker 1: family pups Serena and Skipper. The concept of Canine University
Speaker 1: was genius not only from a student engagement perspective, but
Speaker 1: also from an empirical one. The course built directly off
Speaker 1: the big insight that research or Carry Westguard talks about
Speaker 1: in her book, that we can leverage the presence of
Speaker 1: dogs in the short term to help us practice happiness
Speaker 1: inducing behaviors in the long term. Linda didn't just want
Speaker 1: her students to engage in mindfulness and gratitude and kindness
Speaker 1: when Serena and Skipper were there. She also wanted her
Speaker 1: students to see the benefits of these well being boosters overall,
Speaker 1: even in times when there were no poochas present. Linda
Speaker 1: was using a quick dose of dogs to inspire the
Speaker 1: long term happiness strategies that benefit all of us, whether
Speaker 1: we're a dog owner or not. Linda was able to
Speaker 1: walk her students through nearly all of the important practices
Speaker 1: that Carry identifies in her book. Starting with mindfulness, we
Speaker 1: explained how dogs are present in the moment at all times.
Speaker 1: Dogs really do bring their attention to something. They bring
Speaker 1: it to each other when they're playing with each other.
Speaker 1: How do we do that? How do we miss the mark?
Speaker 1: So that's very much where the dogs were our teachers,
Speaker 1: and that's why we had to have our professors, Serena
Speaker 1: and Skipper in the room with us all the time.
Speaker 1: Linda reasoned that having the pups present would also give
Speaker 1: the students a chance to practice a second behavior that
Speaker 1: science has shown can quickly boost our mood doing nice
Speaker 1: things for others. Our theory being the best of us
Speaker 1: comes out when we're with our K nine friends. But
Speaker 1: that theory was confirmed more powerfully than Linda expected. When Serena,
Speaker 1: Linda's small habannie assistant, got stage right at the start
Speaker 1: of her first class. She was shaking like a leaf,
Speaker 1: and to watch them immediately dropped to their knees, lay
Speaker 1: on the floor and offer their hand in the most
Speaker 1: gentle way, I thought, Wow, they're not afraid of being
Speaker 1: embarrassed looking silly. There was an immediate connection. If you're
Speaker 1: feeling sad, the best way to get happy quick is
Speaker 1: to do something for someone else. Another surprise was how
Speaker 1: quickly the dogs facilitated social connection between the humans taking
Speaker 1: the course. What we saw was a group of students
Speaker 1: who didn't know each other before the course began. In
Speaker 1: over four days, they were talking and sharing and it
Speaker 1: was an amazing just experience that happened over that period
Speaker 1: of time. But the most impactful practice of the entire
Speaker 1: four day class was the final course activity. The students
Speaker 1: took a field trip with their own dogs if they
Speaker 1: had one, to sex stores Pond. Getting them into the
Speaker 1: woods with their dogs was the primary way for us
Speaker 1: to have that as a sort of a little bit
Speaker 1: of a learning laboratory. The field trip allowed students to
Speaker 1: experience one of the practices you heard Carrie recommend before
Speaker 1: exercising with your dog. But getting more movement wasn't Linda's
Speaker 1: real motivation for the stores Pond trip. Because our kids
Speaker 1: get out in the woods. They're athletes, they run, they walk.
Speaker 1: We live in a very rural area. I wanted them
Speaker 1: to be out there and paying attension. Linda wanted her
Speaker 1: students to have an adventure in mindfulness. It was one
Speaker 1: of the hardest final exams she could come up with.
Speaker 1: I think they are so plugged into so many things
Speaker 1: that the idea of resting the mind is hard, is difficult,
Speaker 1: is challenging. But as with other practices in Canine University,
Speaker 1: Linda was hoping that her students would closely follow the
Speaker 1: lead of their canine mindfulness tutors. I really wanted everybody
Speaker 1: to get on all fours and sniff the ground. What
Speaker 1: we were able to do was, you know, just basically
Speaker 1: to go out into the woods and glory with our
Speaker 1: dogs as they sniffed the ground and wag their tails
Speaker 1: and notice things. Even though Linda scaled back from forcing
Speaker 1: her students to do the full on ground sniffing, she
Speaker 1: did get them to follow their dogs lead by engaging
Speaker 1: all of their senses more than they would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: What senses are you using right now? What do you hear?
Speaker 1: And as we were walking through it, I would say
Speaker 1: what do you hear? And they would yell out water.
Speaker 1: We hear water, you know, it might be my dog's panting.
Speaker 1: But the idea is we listen, but we only queue
Speaker 1: into the sounds we have to worry about. We don't
Speaker 1: queue into the sounds that give us pleasure. And again,
Speaker 1: pore time, I would have them walking in their bare feet.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, what does it feel like? What
Speaker 1: does the gravel feel like? What does the grass feel like.
Speaker 1: After this sensory exercise and a whole week of dog tutelage,
Speaker 1: Blinda gave Serena Skipper and her students the rest of
Speaker 1: the afternoon off. Her pupils had several hours to do
Speaker 1: whatever they wanted. Its stores ponned. Blnda was interested and
Speaker 1: whether the experience with dogs over the last few days
Speaker 1: had changed the way her students carried themselves during a
Speaker 1: time when she wasn't directly conducting happiness lessons. She hypothesized
Speaker 1: that there'd be a change in her student's behavior, but
Speaker 1: to see it firsthand, and to see that transformation, I
Speaker 1: expected it to happen. I was impressed with how much
Speaker 1: happened in four days and how quickly. Students who would
Speaker 1: usually we be stuck on their phones, spent the afternoon
Speaker 1: being social in real life with one another. They even
Speaker 1: used the time to connect with their instructors. Like most
Speaker 1: high school teachers, Linda was used to being snubbed by
Speaker 1: shy students who didn't know her well. But on that walk,
Speaker 1: I really believe it was the dog connection. There was
Speaker 1: so much they found to talk to me about and
Speaker 1: joke with me about again, an immediate connection, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean they just looked more relaxed. But as a
Speaker 1: mental health professional, Linda didn't just want to rely on anecdotes.
Speaker 1: When Linda originally designed Kenyane University, she planned to use
Speaker 1: a set of state of the art empirical surveys to
Speaker 1: measure whether the class had a positive effect on students
Speaker 1: well being in such a short time. She had planned
Speaker 1: to do a bunch of pre and post assessments of students'
Speaker 1: mood and well being, but in the end, her students
Speaker 1: were too busy being with their dogs and well just being,
Speaker 1: which in retrospect, Linda realizes was probably a good thing.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of things I was going to do,
Speaker 1: and as I got to see the students what I
Speaker 1: realized they were not at all interested in doing that.
Speaker 1: They wanted to be in the moment. So we didn't
Speaker 1: measure it. We experienced it, we laughed about it. We
Speaker 1: were in the moment. Linda didn't need a survey to
Speaker 1: see just how transformed her students seemed after the class.
Speaker 1: Her experience with Canine University taught her that brief interactions
Speaker 1: with dogs can be an inspiration for all of us,
Speaker 1: no matter whether we have a pet or not to
Speaker 1: help us adopt new strategies that positively affect our well being.
Speaker 1: So does Linda hope that someday dogs will be giving
Speaker 1: lessons that every high school. Oh, well, that would be
Speaker 1: my dream. Yes, I agree with Linda here. I think
Speaker 1: we'd all be better off if we had a little
Speaker 1: canine university in our lives. But we don't necessarily need
Speaker 1: to high school, spring intensive course or even our own
Speaker 1: personal pet dog to get that needed canine education. The
Speaker 1: science shows that we can get a lot of the
Speaker 1: happiness benefits that come from being around a dog if
Speaker 1: we just remember to ask ourselves that all important question,
Speaker 1: what would a dog do? Right now? By following this
Speaker 1: sort of canine lead, you'll start using more of your
Speaker 1: senses and getting curious and present with the world around you,
Speaker 1: and even maybe start moving more. With a little canine inspiration,
Speaker 1: we can naturally wind up engaging in practices that I'll
Speaker 1: get our metaphorical human tales wagging, and that will help
Speaker 1: us feel a little happier. The Happiness Lab is co
Speaker 1: written and produced by Ryan Dilley. Our original music was
Speaker 1: composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring, mixing, and mastering
Speaker 1: by Evan Biola, Joseph Friedman checked our facts. Sophie Crane
Speaker 1: mckibbon edited our scripts. Marilyn Rust offered additional production support.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Miela Belle, Carly mcgliori, Heather Faine, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: Daniella Lucarne, Maya Knig, Nicole Morano, Eric Xandler, Royston Bizzer,
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, my agent, Ben Davis, that Pinus Lab is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Pushkin Industries. And meet doctor Laurie
Speaker 1: Santos