The doctor in Anthrozoology Paula Calvo believes that “children who live with pets” are more empathetic and more balanced.
Paula Calvo has studied the relationships of humans with animals. She affirmed — “children who grow up with animals at home develop as more sociable, more empathic and more balanced adults, and healthier too”.
Calvo has been trained in Ethology at Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and is a professor of a master’s degree in Ethology at the University of Santiago de Chile. She also ensured that contact with animals in an early age strengthens the immune system of minors.
Minors can learn to take care of a living being. Additionally, they learn different values such as “responsibility, empathy, equality, respect and know how to value to beings different from us”.
The parents, although they do not want or cannot have pets, look for ways in which their children can maintain contact with the animal environment — either in places such as school farms or shelters.
According to Calvo, as a result of the pandemic and the search for the COVID-19 vaccine, some laboratories were experimenting with animals, specifically with cats.
Instead of spending all that time, money and lives on useless experiments with cats, it is not really serious and useful research that can end the threat of this pandemic.
Another aspect is “immoral”, that means the purchase and sale of domestic animals. So you have to be very aware of where the animals come from.
Regarding potentially dangerous dogs, it has been proven that genetically aggressiveness is not transmitted. But it has more to do with the handling that is done, the environment and the conditions of the first months of life in which these breeds grow. The necessary part is to train it.
Pet Dogs Help Social-Emotional Development in Young Children