Pets are the wonderful, joyous creatures that can cause frustration from time to time, but all that is forgotten when you take that 1 cm footstep past the door and you are being showered and clambered onto with all the love in the world.

For some people, it is simply not practical to have their own bundle of delightfulness, whether that is due to the potential cost of vet bills or quite plainly; allergies. Most commonly, people are too busy to fit in time to look after a pet.

However, despite all of this, i believe that an addition of a pet to a family is an incredible blessing that brings many benefits that a range people might not be aware of.

For young children, having a pet whilst growing up will teach responsibility and important manners, such as, how to appropriately treat and look after things. The responsibility can give kids an insight into what having children of their own might be like. For only children, they can learn attributes that older siblings may similarly have from looking after another. From the consideration of another’s needs, the ability to be aware of how actions affect others and how that personally feels, is unlocked at a young age.

A pet is viewed as a member of the family and as a best friend, the joy of a pet is also followed by the heartbreak of losing one, this is very hard as a child will often look to their pets for companionship when feeling low or lonely. As the loss of a pet might be the first loss a child has to cope with, it can help them to cope with further losses throughout their life.

It’s not crucial, but it is nice to grow up with a pet, largely for the comfort aspect and the emotional support. It encourages you to become more socially confident with other animals and humans. Giving an animal a good home can make you feel better in yourself, especially if they are from a rescue centre, as you’ve improved someone else’s life and they will always be extremely thankful and loving to you.

Personally, i feel that pets like guinea pigs and mice don’t have as much of an impact as a cat or dog would, only because their personalities are less prominent and therefore viewed less as a family member and more as a pet.

Babies with pets in the house are less likely to develop allergies later in life. A study found that 18 year olds who’d had a pet in the house when they were less than a year old were half as likely to be allergic to that animal than those who didn’t have an animal.

The key is early life exposure, finally living with a pet later in life won’t have the same affect on your immune system.

Pets keep you fit and lower your stress levels, they even have the ability to detect cancer. Also, people with pets tend to have lower heart rates and blood pressure than those without.

Clearly, they do not only provide benefits to mental health but also to physical health, so yes, even though there may be frustration and inconvenience from time to time in regard of owning a pet, BUT, it truly is worth it.