Anchorage Daily News

While many industries are feeling the pain of the current economic crisis, the pet industry is booming.

Americans spent $41 billion dollars on their pets last year, and that figure is expected to grow by 5 percent this coming year, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturing Association.

We spend money not only on necessites like pet food. High-end pet services are proliferating -- doggie day care, pet spas, and medical insurance policies.

You can buy pet strollers and pet waterbeds. You can put up your pet at the "Presidential Suite" at the Ritzy Canine Carriage House in Manhattan for $175 a night (breakfast included).

When Hurricane Katrina hit, some Gulf Coast residents risked staying home rather than abandon their pets. No story tugged at people's heartstrings more than the young boy sobbing as the police took his little dog, Snowball, from his arms when he boarded the bus leaving the Superdome.

Identifying with this little boy was not surprising. Nearly 4 out of every 10 adults own a dog, and 6 out of 10 adults have some pet to call their own.

Most of us consider our pets to be full-fledged members of the family, according to a 2005 Pew Social Trends Report of more than 3,000 representative Americans.

Fully 85 percent considered their dogs to be family members, as did 78 percent of those who owned cats.

"When you ask adults about their parents, 87 percent say they feel close to their mom and 74 percent say they feel close to their dads," found the Pew survey.

"But the family intimacy rankings look like this: dog 94 percent, mom 87 percent, cat 84 percent, dad 74 percent."

Pets provide a lot of benefits, studies show.

Tops on the list comes health:

• Pet owners have lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels than people who don't have pets, found a study of more than 5,000 people done by the Baker Medical Research Institute.

• People with pets make fewer visits to the doctor, especially for nonserious medical conditions, found the National Institute of Health.

• Heart patients who owned pets had a much better chance of long-term survival than patients who didn't own pets, found the Life Care Foundation.

• People who own dogs get out and exercise more and are more apt to talk to people. Having a dog with you makes you more approachable.

• Pets reduce stress. One study evaluated people's responses to two tasks. They had to do a series of mental arithmetic problems. They had to submerge one hand in ice water for two minutes.

Before each task, people were asked to rate whether they saw the task as "challenging" or "threatening." An electric monitor recorded their baseline heart rate and blood pressure and then measured them once each minute while they did the task.

People performed the stress test in one of four randomly assigned conditions: 1. Alone; 2. In the presence of their pet; 3. In the presence of their spouse; and 4. In the presence of their spouse and pet.

Those with their pets present were more likely to describe the task as challenging, rather than threatening. When they were with their friends or spouses, they reacted worse to stress. Their pets did not evaluate them as their friends and spouses did.

Pets also stave off loneliness. The number of people we call confidantes is rapidly declining, finds the General Social Survey, which has measured our social networks for many years.

Pets help fill the gap. They keep us company and keep us amused.

Spending so much money on pets makes sense when you consider all these benefits. But I don't really need six pets, my husband has pointed out. We're down to two dogs and one cat. What he won't admit is that he enjoys them as much as I do.

Judith Kleinfeld is a professor of psychology, director of the Boys Project and co-director of Northern Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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