Hard to Resist, They Come With Health Benefits

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

ForestWe used to have a dog, a black Lab named Sam. We thought he was especially smart, though a bit of a character. He was a wonderful pet and when he died, we were heartbroken.

We didn’t want another dog right away, but it took a while to stop looking for him to greet us each time we walked in. And he wasn’t there to eat the pizza crusts or a Chinese fortune cookie (he’d sit patiently to hear one of us read his fortune to him—and yes, our kids thought we were crazy).

But as my friend Helga said, “The longer you go without a dog, the easier it is not to have one.” Eventually we got used to being in a non-pet household—we could make spur-of-the-moment decisions about going to dinner right from work or away for a weekend without a second thought of “What about Sam?” There was no need to negotiate who would do the morning walk or the evening walk when it was raining or bitterly cold out.

(How many nurses working full time have dogs, I wonder? Given the responsibilities, owning one can be a scheduling challenge, or a budget challenge for those who hire dog walkers. But then, seeing a dog at the end of the day may also be a nice change from seeing patients and […]