Pets don’t eliminate stress and loneliness in their owners: Study

Dogs and cats don’t ease their human owners’ overall stress or loneliness, despite owners claiming their pets’ positive influences, according to a study in the US.

The study, conducted by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indianna, was published April 26 in PLOS ONE.

Although the authors expected pets to buffer stress and loneliness, people with pets had similar loneliness levels — and sometimes even higher stress levels — compared with non–pet owners.

On average, people without pets reported the lowest amounts of stress while cat owners had the highest.

Why Islam forbids keeping dogs as household pets and companions?

Islam has forbidden humans from keeping dogs as pets inside the home, and as all Islamic laws, there are logical and health reasons behind this ruling as well.

Muslim scholars say owning dogs as household pets is a departure from moral and religious values and highlights the tendency toward material desires.

Although the Quran has not specifically prohibited Muslims to own dogs as pets, the narrations from Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his successors clearly state the prohibition and harm from this practice.

However, Islam allows keeping dogs to guard property or livestock, as well as for hunting and rescue operations.

In a famous and widely quoted hadith, the Prophet said: 'Angels do not enter a house where there is a dog.'"

Anything that Allah has permitted or required for humans has inevitable and indisputable benefit in it, and anything he has banned has an inevitable loss and harm.

In Islam, dogs are considered as rritually unclean, or Najis in Arabic, and that objects or persons that come into contact with a dog must be washed with water.

Experts say some of the reasons for a dog’s uncleanliness have been discovered by science, while others are still unknown.

For example, dogs are common carriers of rabies, which is usually a fatal disease in animals and humans.

Another problem with pets are dog bites. Nearly five million people in the US are bitten by dogs each year. The most common victims are children, most of whom are bitten by family pets.

002