Lesson:How Pets Improve Your Mood

Conversation

Answer the following questions. You might be asked to write them down or answer them out-loud.

1. Do you like pets? What is your favorite animal?
2. Do you have a pet? What is it? Where did you get it from?
3. What does it look like (color, breed, etc.)?
4. If not, would you ever consider getting a pet? Why?
5. What are the pros and cons of keeping a pet?
6. What is the best pet to own? Why?
7. What kind of joy do pets bring to people?
8. Do you think it's difficult to teach tricks to pets? Why?
9. What can children learn by having a pet?
10. What's the strangest animal you've ever seen as a pet?
11. Why do some people not like pets?

Vocabulary

Look at the vocabulary below. Take time to explore the links for their definitions in English and their translations to Portuguese. When you are done, make a sentence with each word. Ask your teacher if you should write them down or say them out loud.

DT   brutal

DT   punctuated

DT   grueling

DT   jello

DT   mush

DT   fluffy

DT   feathery

DT   pet

DT   ailments

DT   pat

DT   beloved

DT   measure

DT   mellow

DT   households

DT   straightforward

DT   weird

DT   shelter

Video

Watch the following video but DON'T read the transcript yet.

After watching the video do this listening exercise.

Reading practice

Read the following transcript then do the associated reading comprehension exercise.

Transcript:

It's the end of the day and you are exhausted. You had a brutal day of classes punctuated by the world's most grueling workout. Your muscles fell like Jell-o and your brain feels like mush. Oh, on a day like this nothing can make you feel better. Or can it? Actually, there is something that can: It's fluffy and playful and it has four legs. Or maybe it's feathery with two legs. That's right! You've guessed it: On today's Wellcast we are talking about pets! And how they can actually improve your mood and your health. Hey, we're not telling you to just go out and buy a pet. Instead, we're gonna teach you why spending time with cute little fuzzy animals will actually improve your mental and physical health. We'll also help you figure out how to spend time with animals even if you can't have a pet of your own.

So what can spending time with a pet do for you? A study published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine in jolly old England found that dog owners, cat owners and owners of fluffy little hamsters generally found that minor ailments improved when they spend time with their pets. Furthermore: A study by the American Heart Association found that people's blood pressure drops significantly by merely patting animals. This could be any animals, not just their own beloved pets. How do we know? Well, researchers with the AMA gave forty-eight volunteers a series of difficult math problems, while measuring their blood pressure and other stress indicators. Half of them were given a temporary pet to spend time with. So, when the volunteers came back to do more incredibly difficult math problems six weeks later, those who had spent time with pets over the course of those six weeks didn't show the kind of stress reactions that the pet-free folks had. They were more mellow, more calm, better able to think rationally about the problem than those who didn't have any quality pet time.

Clearly animals are awesome. But, if you're not one of the 62% of American households who have a pet, what should you do? Well, we at Wellcast have got a couple of suggestions for you.

Pause and print out our PDF at watchwellcast.com. Got it? Awesome!
This worksheet will teach you our four-legged method to get you spending time with animals.

Now, leg one of our worksheet: Brainstorm! This is pretty straightforward: Think of all the friends in your circle and think of all the pets that they have. Next, make a list of your top five favorite pets. It sounds silly, but don't worry: We have another leg for this.

Leg two: Reach out. Call up your friends and ask how you could get involved with their pet life. Don't forget: Pets are a big responsibility and everybody needs help time to time. So if you ask them if you could walk the dog once a week or maybe be the first person that they call when they go on vacation, it won't be that weird.

Leg three: Volunteer. Another great way to get quality animal time in is to volunteer at your local animal shelter. Not only are you going to be connecting with your community, but you'll be connecting with a wonderful little puppy or kitten or something else that needs some TLC and on top of all of that, you'll be lowering your blood pressure and stress as well. Not sure how to start? Check out this national registry of animal shelters or look up a shelter on Google. Write down their contact information on our worksheet and then give them a call.

Leg four: Schedule. Once you've arranged the time to volunteer at a shelter, schedule your quality pet dates around that. So, call a Buster's person, Suggs' person, Fluffy's person and schedule some quality pet time. Try for an hour a week just to start.

To recap: Today on Wellcast, we taught you why spending some time with your favorite non-human cuddly friend was actually beneficial to your health. We also taught you a four-legged method to get you to spend some animal quality time of your own, even if you don't have a pet at home. After spending some time with pets, how do you feel?

Writing practice

Write a couple of paragraphs about: 1 - If you have a pet, tell us what is so cute abut your little animal. 2 - If you don't have one, talk about any experience you've had with them before. It can be a good or a bad one. Make sure to use words you learned from the text and try to make it as long as you can.

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