Animal magic

The long-held view that pets make us happier and healthier is being challenged.

- MARC WILSON

Our boy went from looking up rabbit care to adopting a house rabbit from the SPCA in about two weeks. By "house" I mean my house. And we already have a dog, Banjo, because he really wanted a pet and we deluded ourselves, as do many parents, that it would be good for him. Teach him responsibility, give him a reason to go for walks, etc.

One of the widely-held beliefs is that pets are good for wellbeing. There is a good amount of research out there to suggest that exposure to pets can be particularly good for some groups of people. For example, many trials that have involved taking cats and dogs into retirement homes show pronounced impacts on happiness, at least until the trial ends and the animals stop coming.

So surely, having pets in general is good for us? In 2021, a team of local researchers led by my Victoria University of Wellington psychology colleague Gloria Fraser set out to test this, using data from the large-scale New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS), a big, nationally representative, longitudinal survey-based study that has become something of a world-leading machine for research.