Show 1435: Beyond Companionship: A Veterinarian’s Take on the Pet-Human Health Connection

This week, our guest in the studio is veterinarian Dr. Chuck Miller. You can call in your stories and questions about the animals in your life between 7 and 8 am EDT on Saturday, June 21, 2025, at 888-472-3366. Or you can send us email: radio@peoplespharmacy.com. We’ll be focusing on transforming relationships between humans and animals. Have you ever had to euthanize a beloved pet? We would like to hear your story. What was it like to lose such a close companion?

You could listen through your local public radio station or get the live stream at 7 am EDT on your computer or smart phone (wunc.org).  Here is a link so you can find which stations carry our broadcast. If you can’t listen to the broadcast, you may wish to hear the podcast later. You can subscribe through your favorite podcast provider, download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of the page, or listen to the stream on this post starting on June 23, 2025.

One Health:

You may have already thought about One Health without realizing it has a name. This is an interdisciplinary approach to promoting the health of animals as well as humans that share an environment. If you have companion animals that move between inside and outside, your already know that protecting them from ticks and fleas also offers you a measure of protection.

Another example of the importance of this approach would be control of bird flu. So far, we have paid it relatively little attention as it spread through cattle herds and to cats and other animals. If we learned more about its behavior in other animals, might we be able to reduce the impact on humans?

How Do Pets Promote Human Health?

Not long ago, a friend shared a blog post she had written about the death of her chicken. The bird had reached the end of its natural lifespan, and the memorial essay was an appreciation of its special spunky personality. Probably few people who interact with animals on a regular basis can keep from noticing that each one, whether it is a chicken, a cat, a mouse or a hedgehog, has its own particular take on the business of living. That observation in itself helps make our lives richer.

Quite a bit of research has shown that having a pet present can help alleviate anxiety and lower blood pressure. One study examined the impact of therapy dogs on children’s anxiety in the emergency department (JAMA Network Open, March 3, 2025). Children interacting with a therapy dog and its handler for 10 minutes in the ER had less anxiety than those whose emergency visits were dogless.

Young children aren’t the only ones to respond well to dogs. A study in Thailand introduced well-socialized dogs to 122 university students feeling stressed out (PLoS One, March 12, 2025). Students’ self-reported stress, pulse rate and salivary cortisol (a stress hormone) all dropped during and after interacting with the dogs for 15 minutes.

Does Lifespan Difference Cause Trouble?

A dear friend just sent us a very sad email. His golden retriever Abby just died after 13 joyful years together with him and his wife. Moreover, he noted, there will not be another dog in their family because they are both getting on in years. Adopting a dog that outlives you doesn’t seem fair to the dog.

When a pet dies first, the owner grieves. But if an owner dies first, someone must find the animal a new home. How do we do that? How many people make contingency plans for a surviving pet? Should we? What about grieving animals?

Here we’d like to put in a recommendation for a beautiful movie, The Friend. The dog star is magnificent, and the humans are pretty great, too.

Call in Your Stories about Relationships Between Humans and Animals:

Dr. Chuck Miller will be in our studio to answer your questions and hear your stories about transforming relationships between humans and animals from 7 to 8 am EDT on Saturday, June 21, 2025. Give us a call to share your story or learn what you can about that bond: 888-472-3366 or email us: radio@peoplespharmacy.com

This Week’s Guest:

Charles Miller, DVT is the owner of Triangle Veterinary Hospital in Durham, North. Carolina. Dr. Miller has been serving the pets and animal owners of the area for 32 years. You may wish to listen to our previous episode with Dr. Miller. It was Show 1379: The Healing Power of Pets.
https://trianglevet.com/

Listen to the Podcast:

The podcast of this program will be available Monday, June 23, 2025, after broadcast on June 21. You can stream the show from this site and download the podcast for free.

Download the mp3, or listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.