Animal love

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In addition to being valued family members and loyal friends, pets have the power to cure loneliness and alleviate depression. Some clever dogs not only provide their owners with much-needed companionship, they’re trained to protect them from danger and allow them to lead a full life. Josephine Brouard reports.

Lynn Polson, 50, and Ollie, 2

For Lynn Polson, it’s her dog Ollie’s big, pleading eyes that make her heart melt. But the beagle-Jack Russell cross is more than just a much-loved pet, he’s a Lions Hearing Dog who helps Lynn live with Ménière’s disease, an incurable but manageable condition where excess fluid in the inner ear upsets the balance and hearing mechanisms. This produces such symptoms as vertigo (dizziness), tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and hearing loss.

It was a Lions Hearing Dog that gave her back her life after she lost her job as a teacher due to Ménière’s disease. “In 1992, at the age of thirty-six, it became clear that I could no longer teach and I was devastated. I became a recluse for about two years; I spent hours at home every day, too afraid to go out. The tinnitus feels like a jumbo jet is taking off in your head and the vertigo makes you too afraid to go anywhere – I was a wreck. Then, in 1993, I got my first Lions Hearing Dog, a kelpie called Wally, but he died during his probationary period.

“The following year I got a mongrel, Mac, and he stayed with me for ten years. He was my ears, alerting me when my baby daughter was crying, because I couldn’t hear her. He also forced me to go outside the house and exercise, which thankfully got me back into the community. In those days, it was a big deal for me just to go to the bank. But slowly, with Mac, I regained my confidence and independence and started to do things that other people take for granted.”

Lynn now has adorable Ollie to keep her company. “My children will soon be leaving the nest, but my most faithful companion will stay! Ollie’s got the devil in him; he makes me laugh,” she says.

However, there are still many people who are ignorant about the important service that guide dogs provide and Lynn says it’s frustrating when people bar her from entering a cafe or restaurant because she’s accompanied by Ollie. “It’s actually against the law to discriminate and there are severe penalties for denying access,” says Lynn. “The Lions people do a magnificent job training dogs like Ollie, and if people realised what good they do, they would encourage more disabled people to have working dogs. They are more than dogs, they’re our lifesavers!”

Writer’s own story

When I complained about the solitary life of a writer to my GP, she pointed to a photo of an adorable pooch on her desk and said, “Get yourself one of these.” Boy, was she on the money. Not only has Indiana (who coincidentally models on page 185 of the December 06 issue of Notebook: magazine) become my dearest companion, she’s made a big difference to my relationship. After a long day at the office, a 15-minute love-fest with ‘Indy’ transforms my husband’s mood and I reap the rewards. And it’s not only us who benefit from the positive power of pets. Research indicates pet owners visit their doctors less often; use less medication; register lower cholesterol and blood pressure; recover more quickly from illness; deal better with stress; and report less loneliness.

Latest Research: Pets Indicate Neighbourhood Friendliness

“Location, location, location” may soon be replaced by “pets, pets, pets” as the key to finding the perfect spot to live, if the latest research is any guide.

“While there are well known one-on-one benefits to owning a pet, our research clearly shows that pet ownership also has a beneficial ripple effect for the whole community,” says Dr Lisa Wood from the School of Population Health at the University of Western Australia.

“Non-pet owners spontaneously identified people walking dogs as one of the ways in which they get to know and recognise neighbours and other residents within their suburb.  Dog owners also identified social contact resulting from being out with their dogs.  The visible presence of people walking dogs seems to contribute to feelings of collective safety and a generalized sense of community,” says Dr Wood.

Some of the Key findings from the research show that:

• 40.5% of pet owners said that they had got to know other people in their suburb through their pet, with dog walking being the activity that was most likely to initiate contact;
• 83.8% of dog walkers talked to other pet owners while out walking their dog;
• Pet owners were 57% more likely to be civically engaged than non-pet owners;
• Pet owners were 74% more likely to have a high social capital score compared with non-pet owners;
• 82.5% of dog owners felt safer in their homes because of owning a dog; and
• The odds of feeling lonely more frequently were twice as high among non-pet owners as pet owners.

Words: Josephine Brouard. Photography: Andrew Lehmann. Hair & Make-up: Julie Corbet.