For years, pet ownership has been promoted as a simple path to better mental health, less loneliness, and a happier life. Animal shelters, veterinarians, social media influencers, and even major health organizations have repeated the idea that pets improve emotional well-being. The popular belief has become so widespread that cartoonist Charles M. Schulz famously wrote, “Happiness is a warm puppy.”
But a major new study from Australia is now challenging that assumption. According to researchers from the University of Melbourne, pets may not actually make people happier at all.
The study, titled “The Causal Effect of Pet Ownership on Health and Well-being,” was published in the scientific journal Applied Research in Quality of Life and examined whether owning a pet truly improves life satisfaction, mental health, loneliness, or general health. The answer researchers found was surprising: on average, it does not.
A Different Kind of Pet Study
Many earlier studies claimed pets were beneficial for both physical and psychological health. Researchers often described pets as “social facilitators” and “social resources” because they provide companionship and encourage interaction with other people.
However, the new study argued that much of the earlier research had major flaws. Most previous studies relied on small groups of volunteers or cross-sectional surveys that only captured one moment in time. According to the researchers, those kinds of studies can be heavily biased because people who already love their pets and feel emotionally attached to them are more likely to volunteer for pet-related research.
To avoid those problems, the Australian researchers used a much larger and more sophisticated approach. The study was led by Maxim Ananyev and his colleagues using data from the HILDA survey, short for Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia.
The HILDA survey has followed thousands of Australians since 2001 and includes a nationally representative sample of about 7,500 households. Researchers used data collected between 2018 and 2022 to examine what happened when people acquired pets.
How Researchers Studied Happiness and Pets
The study focused on 495 renters in the Australian state of Victoria who did not own pets in 2018. Researchers chose this group because Victoria introduced a major policy change in 2020 that prevented landlords from unreasonably denying tenants the ability to own pets.
That legal change created what researchers called a “quasi-experiment.” Since more renters suddenly gained access to pet ownership, scientists could compare their well-being before and after the policy change and compare them to similar groups elsewhere in Australia.
The researchers examined multiple categories of health and happiness. Participants completed questionnaires measuring:
- Life satisfaction
- Loneliness
- Mental health
- General health
Mental health scores were based on questions about nervousness, sadness, calmness, and happiness over the previous four weeks. General health scores included self-rated health and questions about sickness and overall physical condition. Loneliness was measured on a scale from 1 to 7, while life satisfaction used a 0 to 10 scale.
Researchers also included all types of pets, including dogs, cats, birds, horses, and fish.
The Surprising Results
Despite the common belief that pets improve happiness, researchers found no statistically significant improvements in any major category.
Owning a pet did not significantly improve life satisfaction, reduce loneliness, improve mental health, or improve general health.
The researchers repeatedly emphasized that the average effects were essentially zero.
For example, to conclude that pets significantly reduced loneliness, researchers said they would have needed to see changes far larger than anything actually observed in the data. Similar results appeared for life satisfaction, mental health, and physical health.
The researchers concluded that “the average treatment effect among those who adopted pets was indistinguishable from zero under all plausible counterfactual assumptions.”
That finding directly contradicts the widespread belief that pets automatically improve well-being.
Why Pets May Not Make People Happier
The study suggested several reasons why pets may not consistently improve mental health.
First, owning a pet comes with major responsibilities. Pets require money, time, training, medical care, and emotional energy. The researchers noted that these burdens may cancel out the emotional benefits for many owners.
The study specifically mentioned badly trained aggressive dogs, stress over sick animals, and “sky-high vet bills” as examples of how pets can negatively affect mental health.
Researchers also pointed out that renters often face tighter budgets and housing pressures, making pet ownership more stressful than beneficial.
Another possible explanation is that any emotional boost from getting a pet may only be temporary. The researchers said people may initially feel happier after adopting a pet, but those effects could fade over time as responsibilities increase and the novelty disappears.
The study also suggested that earlier research may have confused correlation with causation. In other words, happier people may simply be more likely to get pets in the first place, rather than pets causing happiness.
What Researchers and Experts Are Saying
The researchers were careful to clarify that their findings do not mean pets are bad or that nobody benefits from them.
Many individuals genuinely love their animals and may personally experience emotional improvements from pet companionship. However, the study argues that when looking across hundreds of people, the positive and negative effects tend to balance out overall.
The researchers also stressed that losing a pet could still have major emotional consequences, even if acquiring one does not significantly improve happiness on average.
Still, the findings challenge one of society’s most accepted beliefs about pets. According to the study, getting a pet may not be an effective strategy for improving mental health or reducing loneliness for the average person.
