FUNDACION HUMANITAS

Subject: The Panama News v.5 #22, cover story

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 09:14:07 -0800

From: pmanews@panama.c-com.net (Panama News)

Symbiosis celebrated with Holy Water by Eric Jackson

On October 3 in Bella Vista's Andres Bello Park, the Humanitas Foundation, pet owners and animal lovers marked Saint Francis of Assisi's day with blessings for pets and their owners. Though birds and cats were represented, this was for the most part a celebration of the famous friendship between people and dogs.

Why San Francisco de Asis, as he's known in Spanish? The founder of the Franciscan order is known as the patron saint of animals. A former knight who had quickly tired of war, he dedicated himself to the downtrodden-lepers, the destitute, and beasts. The legend comes down to us that St. Francis brokered a peace between the Italian town of Gubbio and a wolf who had been terrorizing its citizens.

Why humans and canines? Though many would object to viewing humans as part of the animal kingdom's continuum, we are, and behavioral traits found in other species are often found in mankind as well. In this case it's symbiosis, the mutually beneficial cohabitation of different species. African wild dogs bond with lions in much the same way that domesticated dogs attach themselves to humans, and in each relationship the dogs loyally provide security and hunting assistance in exchange for care and the leftovers. It's a good deal all the way around.

Scientific research has shown the health benefits that dogs confer on the people with whom they live. In the 1960s child psychiatrist Dr. Boris Levinson wrote about how his dog Jingles could make real-world connections with autistic kids in a way that human beings could not. The first statistics came in the early 1980s, when a graduate student trying to correlate lifestyle factors and survival rates after heart attacks unexpectedly found that pet owners are much more likely to live than those without animals in their lives. More studies followed, and as the beneficial health effects of pet ownership began to be accepted as scientific fact, programs in which pets are taken to visit hospitals, nursing homes and juvenile detention centers proliferated. In the 1994 Australian National People and Pets Survey, it was reported that dog and cat owners made fewer hospital visits than petless people, saving that country between $790 million and $1.5 billion in annual health care costs.

There is a negative side as well. Dog bites, certain diseases and parasites that pets and people can pass to each other, and the many people who are allergic to animal hair and dander are the most outstanding examples.

The relative importance assigned to the health benefits and risks of pet ownership tends to be subjective and culturally biased, even within the scientific community. Dr. C. Everett Koop, the former US surgeon general, mentions pets from time to time in his Internet columns, always in the role of health hazards. On the other hand, professor and geriatric ward nurse Roberta Taylor concludes that it's best to "forget laughter: animals are the best medicine." The debate-scientific, cultural and religious-will continue, as will the ancient bonds between homo sapiens and canis domesticus.

PAGINA RINCIPAL