The Unexpected Health Benefits of Having a Dog

A version of this article was first published on Jennifer Margulis’s Substack, Vibrant Life 

Jennifer Margulis, PhD

A mom contacted me five days to share some devastating news: her son died on September 20.

He was 17 years old.

“The story is mine now,” she wrote in one of the most touching Substack posts I’ve ever read.

She’s calling her channel “Effectively Jettisoned” because that’s how her family was treated by the mainstream medical establishment.

Brady had a metabolic disorder.

His mom told me she doesn’t know if it was the standard over-bloated untested childhood vaccination schedule, the infant Tylenol, the ultrasounds, and the antibiotics—or all of these in tandem—that triggered the genes that turned on Brady’s metabolic disease.

What she does know for sure is that her family was mistreated by a medical establishment that cares more about money, ego, convenience, and liability-proofing than it does about children’s health.

“The American medical system failed Brady catastrophically,” the mom wrote in that post, “so much so that when I named this Substack, before I ever knew Brady would die so young, I had assumed I would write about our disastrous medical experiences with advice for parents on the front end of a journey like ours.”

As much as Brady and his family were failed by modern medicine and the human doctors tasked with caring for them, they were helped by a very special non-human: a dog they named Maxwell David.

Brady was Max’s person. He loved him with every cell in his little canine self.

Brady’s body would freeze for long stretches of time.

When this happened Max curled up beside him, waiting.

“He wouldn’t budge until Brady was up and moving again,” Effectively Jettison explained in another incredibly touching post.

“When medication side effects set in and dyskinesia took over, Max never flinched. When Brady’s arms and legs flailed, Max stayed put. If Brady accidentally elbowed or kicked him, Max didn’t move.

“Once, Brady’s dyskinesia was so bad we worried about Max getting hurt. We moved him repeatedly. He went right back to Brady, over and over, until we gave up. Max ended up with a concussion. Michael rushed him to the vet.

“He came home and curled right back up with Brady. From that point on, we stopped interfering. Which was a good thing, because Max also stopped tolerating interference. If anyone tried to move him off of Brady, Max would growl or nip in protest.

“Eventually, when Brady could no longer walk, he was most comfortable in his La-Z-Boy rocker. Max claimed the left side as his throne. If he was perched there, you couldn’t move him without risking your fingers.

“Sometimes he’d press a little too firmly into Brady’s lap, and we’d have to pry him off. Brady would laugh after making it clear he needed Max moved, because he knew we were all genuinely scared of his dog’s obsessive loyalty.”

A caveat

Before I say more about Rover’s remarkable health benefits to hominids, both from a scientific perspective and from personal experience, a caveat: I’m not wearing rose-tinted glasses when it comes to four-legged friends.

Not all dogs are good for all humans.

For a while, several years ago, I was addicted to doomscrolling news articles about dogs that turned aggressive, sometimes with no understandable provocation or previous history of hostility.

This week alone a 2-year-old was mauled to death by two rottweilers in Georgia; parents in England were sent to jail after their mastiffs killed their 3-year-old; and an Ohio man pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter after his pit bull attacked and killed his 6-month-old.

An anxious dog can make a busy household more chaotic.

And I’ve noticed that dogs—and other non-canine pets—sometimes end up being lightning rods for marital friction.

For example, I have a friend whose husband bought her a dog as a peace offering. It didn’t work. She resented the heck out of the dog and her husband. They ended up getting divorced.

I have another friend who blames the aggression her partner used when discipling their puppy for their dog’s extreme neuroses, fear of loud noises, and frequent indoor bowel and bladder lapses.

Make no bones about it: Dogs are good for human health

Caveats out of the way, the loyalty, unconditional love, and total acceptance—like the love Max showed Brady—are just some of the many, many reasons that canine companions are good for our health.

A peer-reviewed scientific study on this topic, conducted in Hungary, was recently published in the journal Nature.

The ease of a best friend

The researchers found that human-canine relationships offer “the emotional closeness of a child, the ease of a best friend, and the predictability of a relationship shaped by human control,” which reveals “why our bonds with them are often so deeply fulfilling,” according to the study’s main author, Enikő Kubinyi.

Alleviating or avoiding allergies

For years, scientists have reported that children who grow up in households with pets, including dogs, are less likely to develop asthma and other allergies.

Hounds for heart health

Over the years, studies have also shown that adults who own dogs or who have access to dogs feel less stress, have lower blood pressure, and experience less anxiety under pressure than adults who don’t have dogs.

The positive cardiac effects of owning a pooch—or having a dog or two nearby— are especially pronounced in older adults.

If you’ve read Atul Gawande’s outstanding book, Being Mortal, you may remember the story about the myriad physical and emotional health outcomes the residents experienced when the home acquired a greyhound named Target, a lap dog named Ginger, four cats, and a hundred birds.

It was more work for the staff, for sure. Especially when they had to clean up dog doo off the floor.

Better than SSRIs

At the same time, the animals brought life, laughter, much-needed stimulation, and a marked reduction in the need for anti-depressants, sleep aides, and other psychotropic medications to the adults living in the home, even those with advanced dementia.

A 2025 review by researchers in Korea concurs: “Canine-assisted intervention … is recognized for its effectiveness in managing stress and depression in humans,” the researchers insist.

Their review, which cites 110 peer-reviewed references, examines how interactions with therapy dogs “lead to remarkable psychological and physiological changes, including measurable reductions in stress indicators (such as cortisol levels and heart rates) and notable improvements in overall mood and emotional well-being.”

Fido fosters physicality

Other studies show what anyone who owns or borrows a pupper will tell you: having a dog gets you outside and moving around.

In fact, even dog owners who don’t regularly walk their dogs tend to move more throughout the day.

This may seem counterintuitive but it makes sense to me.

I’ve been writing this with my dog curled up at my feet.

It’s chilly, rainy, and wet outside today. I haven’t taken her for a walk today. Not yet. But I have stood up several times since I started working at the computer: twice to let her outside (once to go pee and another time to chase a naughty squirrel), refill her water bowl, and chase her around the living room.

Live-in maid service

If you have a food-motivated fur ball in your life, you also have an in-home clean-up crew.

At least in theory.

My dog’s favorite treats are playtime and affection, not food.

Our kitchen floor is sadly crummy.

Still, even our pumpkin is happy to pre-lick the plates before they go in the dishwasher and she’s an excellent pot scrubber as well.

But wait, there’s more unexpected health benefits of having a dog

When Paul Thomas, M.D., and I were working on a book about pediatric health, Dr. Paul was a cat person. I was a wanna-have-a-dog-but-the-husband-was-allergic-and-how-could-I-cope-with-one-more-responsibility person.

Even though we both theoretically recognized that dogs can confer all sorts of health benefits, we asked Dr. Paul’s patients and our on-line communities to weigh in on what they loved most about having dogs.

Among the responses:

Dogs teach children to pick up their toys so they don’t get chewed on.

Getting a rescue dog makes a child feel like a hero.

When you’re 13 and you feel like everyone in the world hates you, your dog stays by your side, even when you grouse.

Seven years after that book came out, I lost my eye to ocular melanoma. A dear friend and colleague, who’s also a naturopathic doctor, told me she thought I needed a dog.

I was experiencing a lot of post-surgical pain and learning to navigate with monocular vision and I worried I wouldn’t be a good dog mom. I video called Dr. Paul to ask him what he thought.

He’d recently had shoulder surgery and had his older kitty curled around his neck. Paul told me she’d kept him company every day when he was lonely and housebound. In fact, he credited the kitty with nursing him back to health.

“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “Do it.”

My dog, Serenity, is perched regally on the couch now, head resting on her front paws, watching the neighbor’s cat out the window with only her eyes.

It’s hard to say what I like best about this devoted, patient, and loving bundle of apricot-colored curly fur. I could write a tomb about the kindness, patience, and joy she’s brought me and so many others.

I thought I was getting a therapy dog to help me recover from cancer and adjust to my new way of seeing the world. She’s technically a mutt (half golden doodle and half cavapoo).

Little did I know I was getting a sock-stealer, bed hog, warming pillow, foot cleaner, playmate, hiking companion, and wind-up toy. (When my son paddles her front paws while she’s standing on her hind paws, her tail will wag furiously in time with her feet.)

She does something that makes us laugh every day: hop jumping forward like a jack rabbit instead of running in a straight line; lunging and nearly catching one of the flock of wild non-native game turkeys that are destroying the native plants; letting my daughter hold her like a baby and scratch her belly, looking more like a teddy bear than a cur; excitedly following me into the bathroom hoping for a chance to smell my butt; carefully picking the cucumbers out of her food and leaving them on the carpet.

My kids tell me her name’s “too long for a dog, Mo-om!” and “too hippie.”

I disagree.

Every time I say, “I’m taking Serenity for a walk,” or “Serenity, come!” her name makes me smile.

I don’t have to wait for inner peace.

I’ve got Serenity sitting right here beside me.

Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning science journalist and book author.

To read more of her articles about natural health, sign up for her Substack, Vibrant Life.

Bioregulatory medicine is a total body (and mind) approach to health and healing that aims to help facilitate and restore natural human biological processes. It is a proven, safe, gentle, highly effective, drugless, and side-effect-free medical model designed to naturally support the body to regulate, adapt, regenerate, and self-heal. BRMI is a non-commercial 501(c)(3) foundation and will expand and flourish with your support. Our goal is to make bioregulatory medicine a household term.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for the direct care of a qualified health practitioner who oversees and provides unique and individualized care. The information provided here is to broaden our different perspectives and should not be construed as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.