People with pets often credit their furbabies with providing a massive boost to their mental health.
Around 69% of pet owners say they help them reduce stress and anxiety, 69% believe they provide unconditional love, and 66% view them as a calming presence in their lives, according to a 2023 report by the American Psychiatric Association.
But having a pet can also be stressful, especially when you have to worry about their health or arrange for petcare while you’re away.
Now, a recent study suggests there may be another way your furry friend could potentially negatively impact your mental health.
Brian N. Chin, an associate professor of psychology at Trinity College, and his team surveyed over 1,000 pet owners across the US and found that those who felt insecure or anxious about their bond with their pet were more likely to experience depression.
“Our results revealed a clear pattern: Higher pet attachment anxiety was the strongest predictor of depression symptoms,” Chin wrote in The Conversation.
“People who felt overly dependent on their pets, constantly worrying about being apart from them or whether their pet ‘loved’ them back, were more likely to experience depression symptoms.”
In other words, if you’re lying awake at night wondering if your dog is being distant and secretly hates you, you’re probably barking up the wrong tree.
The research suggests that how you feel about your pet isn’t necessarily a sign of good mental health either.
“Surprisingly, simply feeling emotionally close to a pet was not enough to predict better mental health,” Chin said.
“While some may assume that a stronger bond with a pet automatically leads to greater well-being, our findings suggest that the quality of the attachment matters more than its intensity.”
It all goes back to attachment theory — people who have secure attachment styles tend to feel safe in relationships, while those with insecure or anxious attachment styles fear being unloved or abandoned.
While attachment theory is most commonly applied to romantic relationships between humans, this study suggests the same can be said about your bond with your animal bestie.
Another surprising finding, according to Chin, was that “interaction frequency did not significantly predict mental health outcomes,” lending credence to the idea that “emotional security in the relationship, rather than just the frequency of interaction, is what truly matters for mental health.”
Finally, while the debate on whether it’s better to have a cat or a dog may rage on, the researchers actually found that having both a cat and a dog increased the risk of depression more than having only one type of pet.
“While our study did not determine the cause, one possibility is that managing multiple pets can add stress or increase the burden of caregiving,” he said.
And if you need one more good reason to try to reduce your overall anxiety levels — don’t forget that dogs can experience depression and they can smell stress.
