Pets and your health: the good and the bad

Longevity: A year after being released from a coronary care unit, a 1980 study found, pet owners were more likely to have survived than people who didn’t have pets.  (David Butow / For the Times)

Allergy prevention: Evidence is mounting that children raised with pets are less likely to develop allergies to the animals than children raised without. In at least one study, the effect was greater with cats than with dogs. And in at least one other, the preventive effect extended to dust mite, ragweed and grass allergies.  (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

Fitness: In one study, two out of three dog owners took Fido for regular walks. Younger owners were more likely to walk than older owners, and younger dogs were more likely to get taken out than older ones. Bigger dogs got to go on longer walks than smaller ones. Another study found that dog owners were 60% more likely to go for walks in their leisure time than people who owned cats or who didn’t own any pet. Finally, a third study suggests that if you want to shape up, dogs make better walking buddies than humans do -- perhaps because dogs don’t make up excuses for why they can’t go that day.   (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Smoking: Almost 30% of pet owners who smoked said they would try to quit if they were convinced that secondhand smoke could hurt their pets, a survey found. (Less than 2% said the same thing about their children.)  (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Schoolwork: Several studies have reported that young children who had had pets (goldfish, hamsters or dogs) were better at making simple biological inferences than children who had never had a pet. Another found that students in a 10-week reading program who practiced reading out loud to dogs improved their skills by 12%. The students in the program who didn’t read to dogs didn’t improve at all.   (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Math: Pet owners who had lower blood pressure than non-owners to begin with experienced less of a rise in that pressure when they had to do mental arithmetic. Blood pressure rose least of all for those owners whose pets were with them while they made their calculations.   (Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images)

Heroism: A pit bull who saved a baby from a burning house was recently in the news. Many animals, and especially mammals, are hard-wired to save their own babies from danger, says Pluis Davern, a professional dog trainer in Gilroy, Calif. “But the fact that this dog has encompassed a human baby in its sense of family is probably uniquely canine.”  (Alan Diaz / AP Photo)

Sickness: You can catch quite a bit of unpleasant stuff from your pets -- including ringworm, MRSA and the plague. And people with compromised immune systems are at extra risk. Still, while pets can carry and pass along a variety of parasites, you can greatly reduce any danger just by washing your hands after petting or playing with them, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On the other hand, studies have shown that sleeping with your pets increases your risk. “I would not say that having your dog on the bed is bad,” Chomel says. “But it’s better to have it by the side of the bed. And having it under the covers is definitely going too far.”   (Noah Berger / AP Photo)

Cost: Whether you rescue a stray kitten off the street or you spend a few thou for a Westminster-bound chow, the cost of acquiring a pet is a drop in the water bowl compared to the cost of taking good care of it through its life. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has calculated how much you can expect to fork over every year to keep your pet in fine fettle: From $875 for a large dog down to $35 for a fish. These are minimums, the association warns: “You should definitely be prepared to pay more.”  (Mary Altaffer / AP Photo)