Owning a dog keeps older people young at heart according to researchers at St Andrews University.
Research carried out in Tayside and led by Dr Zhiqiang Feng showed pensioners with pooches act around 10 years younger than their biological age.
The findings, which have been published in the Preventative Medicine journal, also reveal that owning a dog can have a beneficial effect on an older person’s mental health.
Previous studies have looked at the positive benefits of pet ownership on the elderly, with dog owners being shown to have fewer symptoms of depression and drops in both blood pressure and heart rate.
However, this is the first study to closely examine the levels of physical activity in dog owners aged 65 and over.
Dr Feng, a senior lecturer at the School of Geography and Geosciences, said: “It is well known that pet ownership may help alleviate feelings of loneliness and depression in older people but one area that has received little attention is the effect of dog ownership on the physical activity levels of the elderly.
“Our results show that dog ownership is associated with an increased level of physical activity in the over-65s.
“On average, older dog owners were 12% more active than their counterparts who did not own a dog, “ he added.
Dr Feng monitored the activity of 547 older people in Tayside with an average age of 79.
Of those who took part, 9% around 50 people were dog owners, and 75% of these walked their dogs.
Over a seven-day period participants were asked to wear an accelerometer which measured their movements.
The length of the walk the pets were taken on did not make any difference to the positive effects of dog walking and, of those who took part in the research, the dog owners on average showed significantly lower levels of anxiety and depression.