What Is Good About Having a Pet

Daily writing prompt
What is good about having a pet?
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In regard to the daily prompt “What is good about having a pet?” Pets can give you so many things, love, company, adventure, memorable moments, hilarious moments, protection, and playing with them or taking a dog for a walk is good for your health. We have dogs and have had dogs for decades. According to this article from the Mayo clinic dogs are good for your health. Dogs reduce work related stress, help manage stress, increase activity and help combat loneliness.

In addition, our late Leonberger dog Bronco protected us and our neighborhood from a trespasser and a peeping Tom who was terrorizing my wife and other women in the neighborhood. A Leonberger is very large dog, like a St. Bernard. The police could not solve the problem. The private detectives I hired did not catch him, despite the fact they were hiding in our backyard at night. However, one time when the peeping Tom showed up, I sent Bronco after him and that took care of the problem. Bronco probably just wanted to say hello, but a big bear-looking dog dashing towards you in the darkness can be unnerving. That scared him off for good. Bronco saved the neighborhood.

Bronco also saved other dogs and pets on several occasions. He detected when our Labrador Baylor was about to have an insulin shock. He protected our pug Daisy from an attacking German Shepherd. He found our runaway hamsters on a number of occasions. Below are some photos and illustrations of our dogs.

A photo of our Leonberger as a puppy. He is wearing a red scarf.
Our Leonberger Dog Bronco at 3 months old
Our Leonberger Bronco is standing on our red sofa. He is giving me a hug.
Me with our Leonberger Bronco. He was not yet fully grown.
My wife is sitting on a red sofa. Our large Leonberger Bronco is sitting in her lap. He is big and heavy, and she is barely visible underneath him.
Our large but cuddly 167lb Leonberger Bronco is sitting nu my wife Claudia’s lap.
A man sitting on a lawn chair and looking in between the blinds of our bedroom window.
The stalker / peeping Tom is sitting on a lawn chair and looking through our bedroom window at night. Illustration by Naomi Rosenblatt.
Illustration of our Leonberger running after a man wearing jeans and a purple shirt.
After the police and private detectives all failed our Leonberger Bronco is chasing off the intruder for good. Illustration by Naomi Rosenblatt.
Bronco has puffy cheeks. There is a hamster in each cheek.
Our Leonberger Bronco is carrying two hamsters in his mouth. Don’t worry they were fine. Illustration by Naomi Rosenblatt.
Our yellow Lab Baylor is sitting on the left. Our brown-black German Shepherd Baby is sitting on the right.
Our Labrador Baylor and German Shepherd Baby. They were both rescues.
Our son is sleeping on our beige leather sofa. He is holding our sleeping pug puppy.
Our son with our pug Daisy when she was a puppy.
Our Japanese Chin is sitting on the left in suitcase and our pug on the right.
Our Japanese Chin Ryu and our Pug Daisy are protesting our travel by sitting in our suitcase. They want to come with us.
Bronco is standing behind Rollo. Rollo is black and white and very small. They are standing in front of the kitchen.
Our Leonberger Bronco with our new puppy Rollo, a mini-Australian Shepherd.
Our Pug Daisy and our mini-Australian Shepherd barking at people passing by our house. Notice the joke.
Rollo, our mini-Australian Shepherd could be a pest. He loved biting Bronco’s tail and even swung in it as if it was a swing.
The joke in the photos is : Daisy says “Rollo do you want to hear a joke”, Rollo says “OK”, Daisy says “knock! knock!”, then they both start barking “Woof! Woof! Woof!”, “Woof! Woof! Woof!”
Our Pug Daisy and our mini-Australian Shepherd barking at people passing by our house. Notice the joke.

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

42 thoughts on “What Is Good About Having a Pet”

    1. Thank you so much for your kind words Laura. You are right. They all have/had their own personality. Rollo is very anxious, easily frigthened, energetic, intense, and he can be aggressive, but he is loving and loves to cuddle. Bronco was calm, unafraid, dominant but not aggressive, protective but friendly. Daisy was calm, funny, innocent, loved sunbathing, but she bit Rollo’s ear. Ryu was anxious, and afraid of bad weather, but friendly and very smart. etc…..

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  4. It’s been proven that pets can enhance quality of life. I love these photos, especially the one of Rollo gripping Bronco’s tale! 😆 The stories about Bronco’s escapades are priceless. What a good boy he was! 💖

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    1. Yes I’ve read articles about that and it makes sense. They provide company and opportunities for exercise for starters. Rollo can be a real pest towards other dogs. He accepted and got along with the other dogs in the family even though he pestered them, but at least there was no aggression. However, he does not accept other dogs, which makes it difficult for us to bring in another dog into the family. You are right, Bronco was such a big helper with so many things. How he sniffed out the hamsters and found them was just amazing. How he detected Baylor’s insuline shock before it happened was also amazing. He had such a good sense of smell.

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  8. I agree, pets do so much for us. When we moved to Spain, I became very homesick for my grandkids and was feeling down. My husband got us a rescue dog named Dot. She is so wonderful and made me feel better right away. She knows when I need cheering up and likes to snuggle with us in bed. Five years later we got another rescue dog, Lia. The same breed but a bit smaller. Now we have double the love. They are our Spanish family.

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    2. Thank you Michele. You are right, no one likes dieting and you cannot easily explain to a dog why he gets less food. But he got through it. Well, there was that one time when he went off his diet real bad. He opened the gate to the kitchen and ate/stole a box of pastries, a loaf of bread, a grilled chicken, a container of mashed potatoes, a Key lime pie, and a plate of scraps after eating a two pound bag of dog treats. We thought we needed to take him to the vet but he was fine.

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      1. Wow! Our Ziggy had a liver problem and had to be on the same old, same old canned dog food ($4 a can) day after day, and he managed a few “steals” too, (not as grandiose as great of scope as Bronco’s though.) He was always one sick pup afterwards, poor baby. How we miss him!

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    3. It can be dangerous but Bronco seemed to have a stomach of steel. On another occasion he ate a box with chocolate gnomes that contained rum, whiskey, vodka and gin. He ate the tin foil wrappers too. We were watching him closely and we were ready to take him to the vet. However, all that happened was that he threw up a little bit of tinfoil. We were going to take him in when that happened but decided to wait. He was acting normal the whole day after that. I am so sorry about Ziggy. It is very hard when they pass away. Our Bronco passed away as well.

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      1. What an amazing dog he was and how blessed he was to have you and vice versa. I love the scripture in Acts 3: 10 that tells us that everything will be restored. We shall be seeing our beloved pets again on earth when the new heaven and new earth are formed. What a day that will be! I would like to meet your hero Bronco then too, and tell him: “Good boy!”…. and give Ziggy a good steak cooked just right!
        Blessings and love Thomas. It’s been nice meeting you and seeing the photos…. especially the one of your wife underneath all that fur.
        ❤️Michele

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  10. I can’t imagine my life without a dog. While I generally consider myself a people person, there are times I don’t want to see anyone but my wife and dog. 😊 Animals have incredible instincts and can pick up on our moods and provide affection when we most need it.

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