by Marta Serrano
Sometimes, the best things in life come from a bark or snuggle. Okay, let’s be honest, its all the time. Walking through the door and hearing your best friend bark from their happiness for you coming home from a long day or your cat moving from the window to your chest to nap with you is just the purest form of love. Every animal that we choose to be our own little best friend, plays a huge role in supporting the companionship we look for in our everyday lives. Despite that they can’t talk to us directly, they speak one to us with their bodies, faces, mannerisms, sounds that we are able to connect with them in a way that we can’t with each other.
I am a 27-year-old woman who has struggled with depression and anxiety for a good chunk of her life. When it comes to these mental health issues, one of the best ways I can cope is through my best friend. His name is Paco and he is a 6 year old Portuguese Water Dog or as other nicknames our “Portie” or “Obama dog”. When we first got Paco, I could just tell that we had chosen each other to be best friends. We even hugged when I picked him up as a puppy and he just melted into my shoulder like he was already home.
Of course, puppies can be a terror sometimes with chewing things, running around everywhere, the potty-training but like raising a child, they learn the way you live and adapt to your lifestyle that soon becomes their own. Animals adapt very well to the environments they are raised in no matter if you’re rich or poor, struggling or thriving. They love us for us and that alone.
Paco had learned about my lifestyle of living very quickly, especially when it came to my mental health. With the depression, I tend to shy away from my outside life and hide. When alone, I love being outside on the back deck or just watching my favorite shows. Paco knew when I was feeling the darkness inside myself and he knew that as my best friend what to do. He jumps up on the couch and paws at me to pet him and even sits in a certain way sometimes where I can hug him. Fully hug him too not just a soft ‘aw thank you’ type of hug. When I go outside to just sit and look at the world around me, out he follows and sits in a position where I can always see him and he just relaxes as I try to do myself.
Now, flipping the emotions and having high anxiety to the point where my body hurts sometimes, is where I was amazed with him. Sometimes, when I reach this point in my mental health, I cannot help but not stop moving around. When I do sit, its agitated and sometimes I cry. Paco, follows me everywhere and sometimes when I am standing, he will stand up on me and stretch his paws just to make direct eye contact with me. At first it annoyed me, but then I realized what he was doing. He was showing me I was not alone and that maybe I needed a little break from where my mind was wandering. When I sit on the couch to cry, that pooch sits right next to me and licks my tears. Its’ almost as if he knows what’s happening inside my head and doesn’t want me to be there anymore than I do.
Paco has and always will be with me through the good, the bad, and the ugly. Mental health isn’t just about the “bad” or the “scary” stuff either. Happiness, self-love, enjoyment, fulfilment, and everything pure and good under the sun also falls into how you take care of your mind and spirit every day. When I am happy or feeling exuberant, Paco is right there with me cheering me on and being happy as well! Even if it’s me being excited over a package arriving, that dog would do the zoomies with me. Sometimes this dog even gets upset when I don’t include him by accident! I had a camp out in the backyard this past summer and of course Paco slept outside with me but when we were taking it down he was so upset that the fun was over and lifted his leg in protest! He loves being a part of my life just as much as I love having him in mine.
These animal companions can offer so much to us that we don’t even realize what we need until they tell us sometimes. My safe zone comes from my dog but yours can come from a snake, a cat, a little bunny, any animal that you picked to love, even a spider! I wouldn’t try to hug a spider though. When I scroll through social media, I see the most amazing friendships people have created with their pets. On TikTok, there were people making little tiny hats for their snakes (and the snakes looked happy) that it honestly changed my views on how we can find companionship in the most interesting places.
One of my closest friends deals with mental health issues as well and so she decided to buy a dog for herself, his name is Pitrii. That dog, has pushed my friend to take jobs in different states, go back to school, really support her journey through her struggles but also gave her the confidence to do what she wanted to in life. When I look through my timeline and see a post about how someone had a hard day but their animal made it all better in the end, it really warms my soul to know that I’m not alone with how I feel about my own pet. That you can find sanctuary in something that is not human and feel totally understood and loved.
If you feel misunderstood, lonely, stuck even, getting an animal will boost yourself to feel something good again. Sometimes as humans, its’ hard to connect, adapt, or change with one another and with our world around us. With animals, you don’t have to do much explaining to receive the love and support you want. They don’t come with an IOU or need reasoning. They just want to be with you because you are the greatest person that has ever lived to them and that’s enough for anyone to feel complete.
