Does Sharing Your Life with Pets Make You More Successful?

If you’ve been considering long and hard whether or not adding a(nother) pet to your family is the right move, two new research studies are full of reasons to enter 2019 as a pack: Having a pet can help you be more successful.

Two new pieces of research released in November prove scientifically that pets have a positive impact on our lives, from teaching us to be more responsible and better leaders to being better bedmates than our mates.

The first survey, conducted in partnership between Banfield Pet Hospitals and Kelton Research, shows a causal link between owning a pet as a child and becoming a C-suite executive. From the Americans surveyed across all walks of life and socioeconomic standing, 93 percent of the C-suite executives surveyed grew up with a pet, and 78 percent attributing their career success in part to owning a pet as a child—plus, nearly a quarter (24 percent) of those surveyed said their childhood pet taught them more valuable lessons than their first internship.

“We’ve long recognized the special bond between people and their pets, as well as the positive impact pets have on our society,” said Brian Garish, president of Banfield Pet Hospital. “From the pet ownership lessons we learned as children, to the ways our four-legged friends currently help us evolve, connect with others, and stay grounded, our latest research supports the notion we’ve had all along—that there may be a link between pets and their ability to help shape us as people.”

In addition to the valuable lessons, empathy and compassion—92 percent of people said their pets taught them to pay attention to non-verbal communication—and discipline we may have learned from having pets growing up, Banfield’s survey also found that pet ownership can go a long way in the workplace for people who adopt their first pet as adults—from better sticking to a schedule or routine (86 percent) and gaining better time management (86 percent) and multitasking skills (86 percent), to feeling more connected to colleagues who are pet owners (80 percent) and thinking those pet-owning co-workers are harder workers (70 percent). The professionals surveyed also said that their pets make them more creative, with three in five (59 percent) people crediting their childhood pet for having a positive impact on their ability to think outside the box, and three in four (77 percent) C-suite executives said that walking their pets help them brainstorm business ideas and boosts creativity at work.

We know from previous coverage that medical professionals are increasingly prescribing a daily intake of the outdoors and nature, with or without our pets, as a cure for a multitude of conditions and a boost to overall health—and the second study released last month, from a peer-reviewed journal called Anthrozoos, found that women actually sleep better at night when sharing their bed with a dog than with a human partner. (I can verify this firsthand: two cuddly whippets > husband for REM sleep any day; even with one of the dogs waking me up at 3 a.m. every night to pee, and even though the other dog snores—but not as loud as his human.)

The study, called “An Examination of Adult Women’s Sleep Quality and Sleep Routines in Relation to Pet Ownership and Bedsharing,” found that dogs who slept in the owner’s bed were perceived to disturb sleep less and were associated with stronger feelings of comfort and security compared with human bed partners. The research posits that the sleep schedule that dog owners can develop to help meet their pets’ needs might contribute to a better quality of sleep—but (sorry, cat owners) cats and humans were found to be equally bothersome in bed, and cats were seen as the least comfort-providing.

So that’s that: Having pets makes us healthier and happier, and is a great way to head into all those New Year’s resolutions. A new puppy or kitty for Christmas is only a good idea, however, if you’ve already been doing your homework and planning for all the lifelong responsibilities of adopting a new pet and making them part of your family. But if that’s the case, then the holidays can be one of the most amazing times of year to adopt—shelters and rescues across the country are overflowing with amazing family pets, from babies to seniors, almost all of whom are given up due to no real fault of their own.