The Development of the Social Self Environment The Joys of Pet Ownership
They say that a dog is a man’s best friend. This is often the case; unlike a lot of people, dogs are extremely loyal to a fault, love their human masters regardless of their looks and personality, and will never betray them. The joy of owning pets, however, is more than just having companionship; it also helps people learn to better socialize with other people in the process.
A lot of owners often treat their pets like humans, in the sense that they believe their pets to have a personality all on their own. This is quite often the case; no two pets ever act alike, even after being born under the same conditions and in the same environment. Pets are something like children to most; there is the responsibility of needing to properly care for them at certain times, such as feeding them or giving them baths, or even making sure they take their vitamins to stay healthy. By having a pet, a person is also able to learn how to care for another creature, and to understand the duties involved in caring for them.
Having a pet also increases the owner’s self-confidence. Taking care of someone else is not an easy job, and being able to do so well improves their self-esteem. They are able to assert themselves more when surrounded by other people, and can manage to maintain a level of self-pride that can be seen in their actions. People with pets are generally happier than people without pets, which also in turn, improve the relationships they have with other people. Being happy also entails lesser stress, and pet owners tend to visit the doctor less and have a healthier lifestyle, as compared to those who do not own pets.
Many animals with have their own share of idiosyncrasies, which may also cause some small problems for their owners regarding how to deal with them. A cat may disappear for hours on end, only to reappear just in time for dinner. A dog may persist in catching fleas despite the best shampoos and the most meticulous brushes and flea collars. A stubborn pet may refuse to learn new tricks and even something as small as a gerbil may have its share of problems, particularly if it persists in escaping from its cage.
The owner is then forced to find solutions to these problems, helping them learn cognitive thinking in the process. Being able to come up with logical solutions to problems posed by their pets helps them think better and develop creativity in solving problems. This would also help them in other areas of their life, such as at school or at work. Consequently, the owner will also learn to better interact with other people around them by analyzing certain situations and coming up with innovative ways to deal with them. While being able to develop cognitive skills from caring for pets will help one with a complicated problem at work may seem a farfetched idea, this is not true at all. Careful and concise thinking always starts from the smallest problems, and gradually develops.
Some pets do not require as much care as others; birds and fishes do not need to be taken out for walks, hamsters do not generally need baths, and very few rabbits, if any at all, need to be kept on a leash. But having pets in general requires a certain level of responsibility that every owner should be aware of. Through this, owners also develop a degree of empathy for others excepting themselves, and learning to care for their pets whenever the latter are sick or tired also instills in them the ability to be concerned for other people that they also care about.