It turns out that in addition to being good company, your dog is good for your child’s health.

Kids that are exposed to dogs in their first year of life are less likely to develop symptoms of allergies and asthma as they get older (1). Having contact with two or more dogs in the first year of life has been shown to lead to fewer instances of both indoor and outdoor allergies (2).

Researchers found that young children with dogs at home had fewer respiratory tract infections, fewer ear infections, and required fewer courses of antibiotics than children without dogs (3).

The biological mechanisms driving the protection against allergies, asthma, and infection are still being investigated.  Some research suggests that it may be related to changes in the human microbiota that come from living with dogs.

Dogs carry bacteria from the environment into the house. Living and playing with a dog, some of those bacteria may become airborne where we can swallow them. Once in the gut, these germs can create changes in the bacterial makeup of our gut microbiota (4).  These changes may be important in mediating our immune response to allergens (5).

Whatever the biological mechanism, science says that living with a dog makes our kids healthier and we’re not arguing.