Medical Self-Care: How Pets Keep Us Healthy

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Nursing homes have discovered the therapeutic value of bringing pets to residents. Pet adoption and pet visitation programs are now under way in cities across the country. Call your local Humane Society or Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) for information on local programs.

Someone to Care For

The task of caring for a pet is often a child's first serious responsibility. Throughout our lives, our pets pull us back into the daily rounds of the natural world with their needs for continuing care.

Feeding the cat, bathing the dog, tending the fish tank, taking the parakeet on your finger-these little acts of caring assure the care giver that he or she is truly needed. Such feelings can at times serve as a true lifeline.

The child who once fed the dog may many years later have little strength or opportunity to help another human being. But he or she can still continue the life-giving rituals of caring by tending a goldfish in a bowl, providing a saucer of milk for a stray cat, or putting out crumbs for the winter birds.

Clearly, all of us-young and old-benefit immeasurably from the companionship and love pets give us . . . and allow us to give in return.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Medical Self-Care, Dr. Tom Ferguson's quarterly journal, is available for $15 per year from Medical Self-Care, P.O. Box 717, Inverness, CA 94937. A sample issue costs $4.00. Dr. Ferguson's book, also titled Medical Self-Care, can be ordered for $10 postpaid from the same address.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print