Pets’ role in our lives is serious

About a quarter century ago, I did a report on my television station about how to deal with the death of a pet. As part of the research, I put in a call to a local pet grief hot line and got an answering machine. I left a message asking for a callback. I am still waiting for a response. I have often thought it was a good thing I wasn't suicidal.

Recently in Washoe County, the Committee to Aid Abused Women, assisted by Noah's Animal House, set up a pet shelter so that abuse victims leaving their abusers could take their animals with them. Difficult as it may be to believe, some abuse victims will stay with their abusers if it means leaving the pets at the hands of a batterer. Moreover, with the new facility, children in the household going through the trauma of leaving home have the pets as comfort in making the transition. (One victim who was staying at the CAAW shelter before pets were allowed kept her pet in a car and parked it away from the shelter so administrators would not know.) Such a pet facility already exists in Clark County and now victims in Washoe County have the same service.

As it happens, at the time the new addition to the CAAW shelter in Washoe was announced, I happened to be reading a book about the internment of U.S. citizens on the Pacific Coast in 1942. I learned that the families thrown into the camps were not allowed to keep their pets with them. To all the tasks they had to deal with like selling their homes, the internees had to decide what to do with these members of the family – turn them loose, take them to an animal control facility, find new homes, or put them to death. More to the point, though, the animals could have been of great comfort to the families, particularly the younger members, in adapting to the shock of the shift in their lives from home to camp. Instead they were burdened with one more source of heartache.

"A pet is a medication without side effects that has so many benefits," Mayo Clinic oncologist Edward Creagan once told Psychology Today magazine. "I can't always explain it myself, but for years now I've seen how instances of having a pet is like an effective drug. It really does help people."

There is research indicating that people with cats have substantially lower heart attack rates than others. Some scientists do research on why people and dogs bond so well, research that is of use in training of service dogs. Yet one of the problems scientists in this field face is the belief, even from some of their colleagues, that such research is less than serious.

Unfortunately, advocates of dogs and cats can be part of the problem, seizing on available research and projecting its positive findings beyond what science has actually established. Some pet people can be messianic.

There are all kinds of ways animals act that may be helpful to understanding people or honing our skills. Some researchers have studied how dogs follow the gazes of humans or how pets communicate with people. Scientists at Texas A&M are now studying the natural global positioning system that some animals seem to have. (In July 1955 Tiger, a cat who owned the James Watson family, became lost in the Ruby Mountains of Elko County during a family trip. In September 1956, Tiger showed up back at the Watson home on Biltmore Drive in Las Vegas.)

The notion that pet research isn't serious has been fading in scientific circles in recent years, but it still endures in everyday folks, which is unfortunate, because sometimes that attitude leads to flawed decisions. Many years ago, inmates at San Quentin were allowed to have cats as pets, an innovative program to aid with rehabilitation. It showed promise but also was administered poorly, as innovative programs often are. Soon the sheer population of cats was out of control. A new warden, George Sumner (later warden in Nevada), instead of getting the program under control so its helpful aspects could continue, simply ended it entirely.

Dennis Myers is an award-winning journalist who has reported on Nevada's capital, government and politics for several decades. He has also served as Nevada's chief deputy secretary of state.