The social and physical environment can alter the aging, health and survival of animals. It is a statement that can be extrapolated to dogs, which are happier when they are accompanied, for example, by other dogs, according to a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Oxford Academic Evolution, Medicine and Public Health.
The company is one of the “social components” that the researchers analyzed, a factor with greater weight than others. “The effect of social support was five times stronger than financial factors. This shows that, like many social animals, including humans, having more social partners can be really important for the dog’s health,” explains Arizona State University doctoral student Bri McCoy.
To reach that conclusion, the researchers analyzed data from a survey involving the owners of 21,410 dogs. The study tried to find key social aspects of a healthy lifestyle. We took advantage of a relatively new and powerful model for human aging, the companion dog, to investigate which components of the social environment are associated with dog health and how these associations vary throughout life.
This is a project on dog aging, in which they were able to identify five factors that together explain 33.7% of the variation in a dog’s social environment.
Upon analysis, they found that financial and household adversity were associated with poorer health and less physical mobility in companion dogs. More specifically, financial and household adversity was linked to poorer health and reduced physical mobility, while greater social companionship with humans and other dogs was associated with better health.
Other factors that captured social support, such as living with other dogs, were associated with better health when controlling for the dog’s age and weight. This “environmental effect” was five times stronger than financial factors, although the strength of these associations depended on the age of the dog, including a stronger relationship between owner age and dog health in younger dogs compared with older dogs.
“Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of owner income, stability, and age on owner-reported health outcomes in companion dogs and point to potential environmental and/or behavioral modifiers that may be used to promote a healthy aging in all species”, they conclude.
