Can Dogs Help Women Ease the Anxiety of Pregnancy?

Pregnancy is an anxious time, but including all members of the family might alleviate stress.

Pregnancy can be a stressful enough experience on its own, so you can only imagine how lonely and frightening it is for women who are hospitalized on bed rest. Luckily, pregnant women at Denver's Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center are allowed visits from their dogs  to help ease anxiety, according to KCNC-TV.

Jesi Roskop has been at St. Luke's for five weeks now. She is expecting her fourth child, and due to complications, she must be regularly monitored. Her husband, Doug Roskop, stays at the hospital one night a week and brings the kids, including Milo the mini Dachshund, on weekends.

"It makes it feel more like home. It's comforting, you know," said Jesi. "To me, this is one of my kids."

For anxious and worried patients, dogs are the perfect companions at the hospital.

Dr. Angela Gray agrees: "We know that when the body is less stressed, there's less complications in general. And so if an animal can provide decreased stress and happiness, then that would be a bonus for our patients, and us."

Still, patients must get permission to bring their dogs in, and all pups must have recent vet checks and vaccinations. And just like at home, parents must clean up after their pets.

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How One Great Dane Opened the Door for Battered Women

Dogs are amazing. We don't need to say it twice. They can sense our sadness and try to comfort us, they can help turn people's lives around, and they can make living with an illness much easier. Dogs and humans share a bond unlike any other relationship between people and animals. We've evolved to need each other -- it's a cosmic alliance that is centuries old.

It's this very bond that saved one woman from domestic violence and helped change the very rules of one women's shelter in Kansas City. Dubbed "Mackenzie" to protect her identity, the woman has her Great Dane, J. Matthew, to thank for where she is today -- a survivor who escaped an abusive monster.

"Mackenzie" can't show her face on camera in order to protect herself from her abuser.

Speaking bravely before an audience, Mackenzie described her painful experience, explaining, "When your life is being threatened and you're in that situation, you don't think. [You only want to] make it through the next blow. Make it through the next second. Make it through the next minute." It was during just such an incident that Mackenzie's boyfriend at the time hurled her right through a wall by her shirt. "Literally -- drywall, boards, nails -- to the other side."

J. Matthew risked his own life to save Mackenzie's.

Alerted to the commotion, J. Matthew rushed to Mackenzie's aid, lying on top of her to protect her from the continuing onslaught. Once the abuse subsided, Mackenzie was able to escape, but her boyfriend threw the dog off the porch, dragging him to a busy intersection and abandoning him there.

Afterward, and back with J. Matthew, Mackenzie was directed to a women's shelter called the Rose Brooks Center, where she learned her dog was not welcome. When Mackenzie insisted she would rather just leave town and stay at a rest stop than stay at the facility without J. Matthew, the Kansas City women's organization had a change of heart.

The Rose Brooks Center now welcomes women and their pets, and is building a fabulous new kennel to house the companions who are more than just pets, but family and support systems. With as many as 40 percent of battered women revealing that they don't leave abusive situations because they don't want to abandon beloved animal companions, the shelter's change of rules is one that can help save the lives of women like Mackenzie.

Rose Brooks Center CEO Susan Miller has no regrets about allowing dogs in the shelter.

Rose Brooks Center CEO Susan Miller doesn't regret the decision to banish the center's no-pet policy, saying, "It was just great to see the bonding they had ... the healing process they went through together. ... It really made us realize this was something we needed to do. We needed to provide this opportunity for women to bring their pets."

We're totally crying at our desks now, and we're not ashamed to admit it!

Via CBS News

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Women who love cats, and the cats who love them

February 25, 2011

Those of us of the female persuasion who love cats probably didn’t need a scientific study to tell us that the bond between cats and humans can be very similar to the bond between humans and children.

Nor did we need researchers to tell us that cats hold some control over when and what they are fed. But if we wanted some rational ammunition to reassure our non-cat loving friends that we’re not crazy cat ladies, a new study from the Konrad Lorenz Research Station at the University of Vienna provides it.

DiscoveryNews reports that this study is the first to show in detail that the dynamics underlying cat-human relationships are nearly identical to human-only bonds, with cats sometimes even becoming a furry “child” in nurturing homes:

For the study, led by Kurt Kotrschal of the Konrad Lorenz Research Station and the University of Vienna, the researchers videotaped and later analyzed interactions between 41 cats and their owners over lengthy four-part periods. Each and every behavior of both the cat and owner was noted. Owner and cat personalities were also assessed in a separate test. For the cat assessment, the authors placed a stuffed owl toy with large glass eyes on a floor so the feline would encounter it by surprise.

The researchers determined that cats and their owners strongly influenced each other, such that they were each often controlling the other’s behaviors. Extroverted women with young, active cats enjoyed the greatest synchronicity, with cats in these relationships only having to use subtle cues, such as a single upright tail move, to signal desire for friendly contact.

While cats have plenty of male admirers, and vice versa, this study and others reveal that women tend to interact with their cats — be they male or female felines — more than men do.
“In response, the cats approach female owners more frequently, and initiate contact more frequently (such as jumping on laps) than they do with male owners,” co-author Manuela Wedl of the University of Vienna told Discovery News, adding that “female owners have more intense relationships with their cats than do male owners.”

So in essence, the study strengthens the notion that cats adore and manipulate women. For most of us, that’s really just another day in the lives of women who love cats, and the cats who love them.

Photo credit: BigStock

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