The Uber-Watch Dog

Your pet may know more about you than you realize.

Service dogs have a storied history

Texas A&M University Libraries from College Station TX, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

For those who have dogs, the bond you form with your pet often transcends the love you may feel towards your friends. While the pet-human bond is occasionally described in terms of being man’s best friend, it is much more. Recent research reveals what pets can actually do for us and have done for us. Our pets, surprisingly, suffer some of the same illnesses that we suffer. From a myriad of similar cancers to diabetes and illnesses similar to human Alzheimer’s (Canine Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome), our pet dogs mirror us in more ways than many of us know.

Because our pets mirror us, investigators are looking at pet dogs as potential ‘canaries in a coal mine.’ Authors Catherine F. Wise, Matthew Breen, and Heather M. Stapleton from Duke University, North Carolina State, and Duke University, respectively, cite a wide range of illnesses that could serve as potential warnings to our own health issues. Quoting the authors,

“…there is a unique opportunity to investigate the role of early life exposures on later in life health outcomes in a shortened time frame” (Wise).

Not only can we help ourselves, but our animals can benefit from the potential data influx that is set to be set-up as future researchers start to mine massive data sets. Vetrinary studies are in the works from different researchers.

In a related wrinkle, Emotional Support Animals (dogs) have played profound roles in the healing of individuals suffering from PTSD, their training as service animals requires the animal learn how to respond to the sufferer. Ultimately, our pets have played integral roles in our lives, and realizing that their physical health can be impacted by our own affairs is paramount to learning to love them better.

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1. Characterizing veteran and PTSD service dog teams: Exploring potential mechanisms of symptom change and canine predictors of efficacy.

   Jensen CL, Rodriguez KE, MacLean EL, Abdul Wahab AH, Sabbaghi A, O'Haire ME.

   PLoS One. 2022 Jul 27;17(7):e0269186. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0269186. PMID: 35895599; PMCID: PMC9328544.

2. Canine on the Couch: The New Canary in the Coal Mine for Environmental Health Research.

   Catherine F. Wise, Matthew Breen, and Heather M. Stapleton

   Environment & Health Article ASAP

   DOI: 10.1021/envhealth.4c00029