I sometimes wonder how people live their lives without animals. I've had at least one animal for my entire life. They are apart of who I am and I cannot imagine not having them around. Josie and Bear, left, have been together for over 2.5 years. They are apart of my family!According to Forbes: Ten ways to live longer "Animal lovers will be happy to know that having a pet can add years to your life, as well. One of the first studies in this arena, which appeared in "Public Health Reports" in 1980, showed that the survival rates of heart attack victims who had a pet were 28 percent higher than those of patients who didn't have an animal companion. "The health effects seem to be very real and by no means mystical," says Alan Beck, director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University. "Contact with companion animals triggers a relaxation response," he says." "
There is a reason that so many "old ladies" have a lot of cats! haha, I'm just joking, though maybe it is true.
Anyway, I've never not had a pet and I would never go without having one. Though their life spans are very short in comparison to human life spans, they are still so important.
Josie loves to get into my baskets when I'm trying to fold clothes!
And Allie loves to get into everything, don't mind the mess that is my entry way....
I guess I'm just lucky that I found a man that loves animals maybe more just as much as I do!
This was Allie's favorite spot as a Kitten, and she still is a Daddy's girl at the ripe age of 1.5 :-). Every morning she gets up with him, follows him to the shower, patiently waits for him to finish getting ready and then leaps from the ground to his shoulders to lay down so that he can pet her.
With that said, I think animals do help relieve stress and I think every child should get to know the joy of having a pet to call their own. It ws so important to me and taught me a lot of great things as a child. I learned about ownership, patients, caring, responsibility, life and death. It's definatly a great addition to my life and I will forever be an animal-lover.
