Imagine a child struggling to focus on their homework or an adult overwhelmed by the stresses of daily life.
Now, picture the same individuals with a furry friend by their side, offering unwavering companionship and a calming presence.
Notice a difference?
Research on animal and human interactions has a long history of examining the impacts of this relationship on human outcomes. In fact, animals are believed to have been incorporated into the therapeutic treatment of humans for over 12,000 years (p. 51).
Research supports that spending time with our pets can positively impact our well-being, including our psychological and physical health. Caring for our pets might even have positive outcomes on our executive functioning skills and reduce some of the barriers to using those skills.
This guide aims to examine the benefits of spending time with pets and provides practical strategies to help you understand and harness the power of human-animal interactions.
Introduction
Executive functioning skills are a set of cognitive abilities that help us plan, focus, remember information, and stay on task. These skills are essential for everyday life, including demands at school and work. Executive functioning includes many different skills, such as planning, time management, and task initiation.
Various interventions have been studied to better understand how to develop and maintain executive functioning skills effectively. In addition to the multiple tools and resources used to manage these skills at home, work, or school, other strategies, such as physical exercise and spending time in nature, have been explored as natural methods to support and enhance executive functioning abilities.
Just as these activities can positively support our EF skills, spending time with your pets can do the same. In this article, we’ll further explore the science behind human-animal interactions and executive functioning, including how pet companionship can help address barriers to executive functioning challenges.
History of Research on Human-Animal Interactions (HAI)
Before discussing pets and executive functioning, let’s briefly discuss human-animal interactions (HAI). This is a growing area of research that explores how animals and humans interact and the outcomes of those interactions.
One important outcome of HAI research is that animals positively impact human well-being, including lessened stress, anxiety, and depression. In addition to offering social support, animals can also facilitate social interactions. Animal-assisted interventions have been developed to improve mental health, physical health, and social functioning, through therapy, education, and activities. Some examples of this include emotional support animals or incorporating animals into school reading programs for students to practice with.
However, a causal link cannot be established between pet ownership and these positive health outcomes. The research on human-animal interactions is mixed, meaning sometimes there appears to be an effect, and other times it’s not so clear. It’s likely that the companionship and adoration we have for pets is what facilitates improvements in well-being, not solely the act of owning a pet. People who experience positive feelings towards animals are likely to seek out opportunities to interact with them as opposed to someone who does not enjoy spending time with animals. People who do not enjoy spending time with pets are no less likely to report positive feelings of well-being.
Connection Between Pet Ownership and Well-Being
Though we cannot attribute positive well-being to owning a pet, we can discuss how interactions with animals can support our psychological and physical health. These outcomes include reduced stress, emotional regulation, socialization, and increased physical exercise. Meeting these needs can support our ability to learn and use executive functioning skills.
Reduced Stress
When people are faced with stressful situations, the presence of an animal can help distract us from the stressor, and foster feelings of hope and comfort. Even just petting a furry friend has been found to promote the release of serotonin, prolactin, and oxytocin, which are chemicals in the brain that help improve mood. Animal companionship has also been shown to decrease blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and cortisol (the stress hormone). Many facilities, such as schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and workplaces, have animals on-site that are meant to lessen anxiety.
Emotional Support and Regulation
Emotional regulation, also known as emotional control, is how we manage and respond to emotional experiences in our environment. Challenges with emotional regulation can be a barrier to using our executive functioning skills. Pets are a source of comfort for people.
Animals have also been employed to support emotional well-being; some examples include therapy dogs and emotional support animals. Overall, pets can help humans manage mental health conditions by supporting their humans through panic attacks, anxiety, and depression.
Building Social Skills
Animal companionship is shown to lessen feelings of social isolation. Pet ownership can also lead to positive interactions with others, like sharing relatable experiences or meeting fellow owners at the dog park. People’s need for companionship can be met through the unconditional love of a pet, especially if there are limited opportunities to interact with other humans. These improvements to social interaction indirectly improve reports of well-being.
Animals can also be a bridge to human interaction, providing conversation points when meeting new people. Alternatively, people who are more shy may be more likely to initiate a conversation when others’ are accompanied by a pet. Pets provide their owners with the confidence to interact while others view the owner as more friendly and approachable. In this case, pets are an informal ‘ice-breaker’ used to start conversations and may lead to more regular interactions, or even friendships.
Facilitates Exercise
Individuals with pets report more physical activity than those without pets. Pet owners often develop a daily routine that involves exercise, such as walking your dog or riding a horse. Even if we are not motivated to engage in these activities on our own, having a pet often results in planning a consistent routine necessary for our pet’s health, allowing us to practice inhibitory control, planning, and self-monitoring. This is especially true for dog owners, who develop a regular walking routine for their dog to get necessary exercise while also reaping the same benefits.
Greater Sense of Purpose
Owning pets can give people a greater sense of purpose because we see how our actions can directly impact our pet’s well-being. Pets need a regular routine of care, including feeding, grooming, and exercise. Taking on this responsibility can make you feel needed and important because your pet relies on you to stay healthy and happy. Your pet will thank you in the process by offering unconditional love and support.
Connections Between Pet Ownership and Executive Functioning
Spending time with and caring for our pets provides many opportunities to practice key executive functioning skills (p. 9). Remembering to walk, feed, groom, and otherwise care for a pet requires staying on task, keeping organized, and regulating our actions and emotions. Below are some examples of how pet owners regularly use different types of executive functioning skills when caring for their pets.
Planning
As a pet owner, planning becomes an important skill when scheduling upcoming appointments at the vet or groomer and then writing them in a planner or calendar. Difficulties in this area might result in missed appointments or accidentally over-booking your schedule.
Time Management
Balancing daily activities for yourself and your pet requires time management. Owners must balance their scheduled commitments with pet caretaking activities, such as taking their pets out for a walk twice daily. Time blindness might result in accomplishing less than you intended, meaning you miss out on a walk or other scheduled tasks.
Task Initiation
It’s important to start necessary tasks promptly, such as feeding a pet at mealtime or cleaning pet supplies when you notice they are dirty. Some pets, like dogs and cats, can vocalize when a task isn’t being completed, while others, such as turtles and fish, cannot give their owners obvious signals. Without initiating these crucial tasks, your pet could miss a meal or experience poor hygiene.
Organization
Adopting a pet involves organizing all the food, treats, toys, and accessories. Creating and maintaining an orderly system for storing pet supplies is important, making them easily accessible when needed. Without an organized system, you might have trouble finding the leash before a walk or keeping track of when to order more food, risking running out.
Problem-Solving
Pet owners often need to engage in problem-solving when concerned about their pet’s health. For example, owners must investigate potential solutions for why their pet is sick (e.g., health issues, food quality) and try different solutions (e.g., consulting a vet, changing food brands or ingredients) to see if there is improvement. Through trial and error, owners can gain insights about their pets that can be useful when similar issues occur in the future.
Flexibility
Adjusting your schedule in response to unexpected events requires flexible thinking. For example, you may have to change your dog-walking schedule during bad weather. Alternatively, you might need a backup plan when your pet’s food is out of stock at the store. Without flexibility, you might experience more frustration and disappointment when things don’t go as planned.
Working Memory
When training a pet, it’s helpful to recall past training commands and techniques that were successful in previous sessions. If you don’t think back to earlier experiences to inform current training, you might not use the strategies you discovered worked well in the past or use strategies already found to be ineffective.
Emotional Control
We practice emotional control when managing our frustration and responding to our pet’s behavior with patience and understanding after they make a mess or do not obey a command. Difficulty managing your emotions in these moments can lead to reacting with anger, sadness, or frustration, which may worsen the situation instead of directly addressing the problem.
Impulse Control
We often practice impulse control when eating meals around our pets. If you have a pet that begs for a taste of your meal, resisting the urge to give in requires impulse control. At first, we might want to share our meal, but we need to stop and consider the potential consequences of letting our pets indulge in human food. Giving into your impulses could result in pain or discomfort for your pet later on.
Attentional Control
It’s important to give your pet attention when they engage in behaviors you want to see in the home, such as using designated bathroom areas consistently and greeting visitors calmly and politely. Suppose you give your pet a lot of positive attention when they jump up on guests, bark excessively, or chew on furniture. In that case, they may continue these behaviors because they have not learned the difference between desired and undesired behavior.
Self-Monitoring
Evaluate the effectiveness of your training strategies with your pet, making adjustments as needed to ensure continuous improvement in your approach. By doing so, you cater to your pet’s best interests. Without self-monitoring, your training efforts may be less effective, resulting in slower progress in mastering new behaviors or commands.
Other Considerations
While pets can support well-being, it is important to consider other factors to make sure both the pet’s and the owner’s needs are met.
Pets Feel Stress Too!
Sometimes, our furry friends can become overwhelmed by receiving too much attention from humans. It’s important to recognize the signs that your pet needs a break (such as physical signs like pinned back ears or tucked tail) and to respect their need for space. If your pet’s needs are not respected, they may become more avoidant, which can impact your relationship with them.
Not One-Size-Fits-All
Interacting with animals in therapeutic or other support settings is not a positive experience for everyone. This may be due to personal preferences or previous negative experiences. As mentioned earlier, owning an animal does not automatically mean a person will experience improvements in health. Similarly, people can improve their well-being without pet interactions or other animal-assisted interventions.
Support Beyond Pet Companionship
If you struggle with executive functioning and other life skills, you’re not alone! There are other supports available to teach you the skills to be successful in school, work, and life. Visit the Executive Functioning Resource Hub to explore a free collection of resources, including strategies you can use to support various executive functioning skills.
If you need more direct support on how to implement these strategies, you may want to explore executive function coaching. Coaching can help you reach your goals by teaching essential skills and addressing barriers to attaining those goals.
TL;DR – (Too Long; Didn’t Read)
Research has shown that human-animal interactions can improve psychological and physical well-being. People who enjoy animals are more likely to report improvements in well-being from pet interactions. This preference facilitates other improvements in health, such as reducing stress, providing emotional support, building social skills, and facilitating exercise.
Caring for a pet offers opportunities to practice key executive functioning skills. When caring for a pet, it’s important to create consistent routines (planning, decision-making) and take care of less-than-desirable situations (inhibitory control). Remember, people have different preferences and may not find pet interaction or ownership beneficial for the reasons listed above. Additionally, some pets might find too much interaction stressful and overwhelming.
If you struggle with executive functioning skills and face the same issues when caring for your pets, consider exploring other ways to develop these skills. You might find it helpful to visit the resource hub or look into executive functioning coaching for support.
Further Reading
- Ling, Kelly, & Diamond (2016) – Human-Animal Interaction and the Development of Executive Functions
- Morrison (2007) – Health Benefits of Animal-Assisted Interventions
- News in Health (2018) – The Power of Pets
- Powell (2023) – Take it From the Experts, A Pet Can Change Your Life
- Skerrett (2015) – Pets Can Help Their Humans Create Friendships, Find Social Support
- Sutton (2021) – Pets & Wellbeing: 15 Benefits of Emotional Support Animals
- UCLA Health (2024) – Animal Assisted Therapy & What Science Says
- Life Skills Advocate – Benefits Of Nature Exposure On Executive Functioning – What The Research Says
- Life Skills Advocate – Executive Functioning 101 Resource Hub
- Life Skills Advocate – Executive Functioning 101: The Basics of Emotional Control
- Life Skills Advocate – Real-Life Executive Function Coaching
- Life Skills Advocate – The Benefits of Physical Activity for Executive Function in Teens
- Life Skills Advocate – What is Executive Functioning? A Comprehensive Guide