🧬 Scientists Prove Dog Owners Live Longer

In Today’s Email:

• The correlation between dog owners and heart health. ❤️

• (A not so) Special Delivery. Mailboxes are the new battlefield.

• “The Squeeze” aka The Internet’s Best Dog News in 60 seconds.

• The Last Laugh: What we’re laughing with. Not at.

Long Live Dog…Owners? Studies Are Saying So.

Let’s be real… we have stress triggers because of our dogs. Anyone who has ever owned a dog knows has been through shredded rolls of toilet paper, food missing from kitchen counters, barf on rugs and time-consuming visits to the veterinarian, sometimes after midnight. It comes with the territory. 🤷

But science has found an upside. 

Owning a dog, it seems, can enhance your health. A survey of research covering nearly 4 million people in the journal Circulation reached the conclusion that on average, keeping a canine companion reduces the overall risk of death by 24% and the chance of dying from cardiovascular disease by nearly a third. It all translates into longer lifespans…

…giving new meaning to the term “dog years.” (we had to)

The American Heart Association tells us that living with pets improves heart health:

• Dog owners were 65% less likely to die after a heart attack than non–dog owners.

• Dog owners had a 31% lower risk of dying from heart disease.

• Dogs improve mood and lower blood pressure. One study showed that dog owners with pre- to mild hypertension had lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

How?

The experts at Circulation are attempting to explain this phenomenon…

“Several studies have shown that acquiring a dog perforce increases physical exercise (as anyone who has unsuccessfully tried to sleep past the time of a dog’s routine morning walk can attest),” notes one of their scientists. It pushes people outdoors, and as your dad may have told you, fresh air never killed anyone.

Both purebreds and mutts also tend to “reduce anxiety and loneliness, increase self-esteem and improve overall mood,” says Circulation. The overall effect is “large and sustained improvements in mental health.” You can tell that to any friend who says you’re nuts for spending the cost of a used car on your bulldog’s gall bladder surgery.

It has long been known that dogs have evolved to gain the indulgence of humans through adoring eyes, wagging tails and sheer enthusiasm. What our furry friends are blind to is that we get the better end of the deal.

If you’re not one of the 65 million American homes equipped with these mobile therapeutic devices, you can always visit the nearest animal shelter, which should have many options. You can improve a dog’s life while you’re saving your own.

Maybe adding a four-legged member to your household will add days to your life. It will certainly add life to your days.

Overheard at a coffee shop:

“My boss was on my ass, so I had to work through lunch. It felt like a punishment until I realized Darcy has never been given a lunch in her life. Like she’s only been given breakfast and dinner for 8 years and she’s somehow okay with that?!”

- Coffee Call, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The Dog vs. Mailman Saga Has Reached Its Apex.

It sounds like an old-fashioned stereotype, the dog chasing after the mailman… because it is. It’s a feud that has withstood the test of time. “Man’s best friend” doesn’t apply to postal workers and they’re calling out the biggest hazard that comes with the job.

In 2022, dogs attacked more than 5,300 employees who were delivering the mail, according to the U.S. Postal Service.

Wait… postal workers have to be prepared for this by now, right?

It’s a big enough issue that the United States Postal Service enlists the help of an Occupational Safety and Health Senior Director. Her name is Linda DeCarlo and her job centers on keeping her workforces’ limbs out of your dog’s jaw.

Surprisingly, she says the goodest boys and girls are the largest contributors to the problem.

"When our mail carriers are bitten, it is usually a 'good dog' that had not previously behaved in a menacing way," DeCarlo said in a statement.

Pets who don't show signs of aggression may lash out at postal workers, who often must enter a property to drop off the mail, and the results can sometimes be deadly.

So what are postal workers planning to do?

Well, they’re not holding our mail hostage. Instead, The Postal Service is promoting June 4th through June 10th as National Dog Bite Awareness Week, a public service campaign meant to raise awareness of attacks on mail carriers.

Awareness? Come on. Where are the kevlar vests?!

In USPS’ eyes, one bite is one too many and new tools continue to be unleashed to help reduce dog attacks in the area.   

Mobile Delivery Devices are hand-held scanners, used by carriers to confirm customer delivery, and they now include a feature to indicate the presence of a dog at an individual address. But how do they know…?

The Package Pickup application at usps.com asks customers to indicate if dogs are at their address when they schedule package pickups, which allows USPS to send alerts to those scanners.

At the mailbox, some dog owners may see a high-tech notice from the Postal Service. A 3-D printed postcard uses the latest in printing technology to command the attention of postal customers whose dogs may pose a risk. So be on the lookout for 3-D postcards next time you’re tossing out those weekly grocery store coupons.

They’re also armed with a new interactive map that shows where dog attacks on letter carriers occurred in 2022. It will be used to educate communities and customers about trends in dog bites nationwide.

With all of this data, we have to know which mail routes are the most dangerous…right?

They’re giving us nationwide rankings by state.

As you can imagine, the states with the largest populations are at the top of the list. California saw the most canine-on-postal worker attacks last year, with 675 incidents, followed by Texas, New York and Pennsylvania. The number of attacks in all four states increased in 2022 over 2021.

Houston had the highest number of attacks of any city, with Los Angeles, Dallas and Cleveland trailing behind.

Here’s your top 10:

What can we do to help? Some obvious measures that can help pump the brakes on these attacks are to:

• Keep your dog inside, behind a fence or on a leash when the mail carrier arrives.

• Don’t let children take mail directly from a postal worker, since protective pets may think the child is in danger.

It’s a two-way street. Authorities say mail carriers are trained to spot dogs on their route and take measures to stay safe, such as refraining from petting dogs and making noise before entering a property so the dog knows they are there.

…and if they attack?

Get this: postal workers are told to use their mail satchel as a shield or deploy dog repellent if necessary.

The Postal Service says an aggressive dog could cause the agency to temporarily stop mail service in an entire neighborhood, forcing residents to pick up their mail at a post office, until the dog is properly restrained.

Better days are ahead. Stay strong, postal heroes. ✊

“The Squeeze”: Dog News In 60 Seconds

• 🤙 “Hang 10, dude!” Flagler Beach got over 50 canines to compete in a surfing competition. Leave it to Charlie Brown, a golden doodle, to score the only 10, brah.

• 💩 A Yakuza gang member was finally arrested… for not picking up dog poop. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, gang leaders…

• 🎨 Try telling us you wouldn’t spend 15 minutes staring at this painting at the Smithsonian if you didn’t know it was painted by a dog.

• 👶 Expecting a (human) baby? This wife gave a pretty frightening canine ultimatum before their child arrives. Get on your training horse, Kyle.

• 📱 Spruce up that Instagram feed, people. Here are 12 celebrity pets you should know.

• 👅 Break out the ruler. Guinness just decided which dog has the longest tongue. Zoey’s kisses would be absolutely lethal.

• 🎥 “He was named after the dog.” But, was Indiana Jones really influenced by a canine? Here’s the breakdown.

• 💰 Talk about a rent spike. Survey proves renters are willing to spend $6,000/year to keep their pets.

• ❌ Experts are saying to not hug your dog. We’re not buying it, but hear their side before grabbing your pitchfork.

Today’s Last Laugh:

Harper isn’t talking until he has a lawyer present…