Dog-related activities and human well-being in Brazilian dog owners: A framework and cross-cultural comparison with a British study

Abstract

Despite the abundance of studies investigating the benefits of having a dog, the specific aspects of dog ownership that impacts human well-being are not well understood. This study used a qualitative approach to create a framework of the main dog-related activities perceived by Brazilian owners to impact their well-being and compared the findings with those of a similar study in England. Thirty-two Brazilian dog owners from the five regions of the country were remotely interviewed. The thematic analysis of the transcripts generated a total of 58 dog-related activities, organised into 13 themes. Most activities were reported to have a positive effect on participants' well-being, accounting for 76.8% of the total number of mentions in the interviews. 'Playing with dog' and 'Dog presence' were the themes most frequently associated with positive well-being outcomes, whereas 'Unwanted behaviours' and 'Failing to meet dog's needs' were the most commonly associated with negative outcomes. The dog-related activities reported by Brazilian dog owners and the well-being outcomes linked to those activities were consistent with the previous British sample in the framework that emerged. These findings suggest reliability between the two methods used to gather data (remote interview versus focus group) and, most importantly, provide consistent cross-cultural evidence for how certain activities impact dog owner's well-being.

Keywords: Brazilian; British; dog ownership; mental health; pet ownership; psychological well-being; subjective well-being.

Figure 1.

Heat map of the dog human-related activities (DHRA) and related impacts on Brazilian dog owners’ well-being. The darker the cell, the higher the relative frequency of reporting of the activity (rows) in relation to the given aspect of human well-being (columns).

Figure 2.

Circumplex model of the effect of dog human-related activities (DHRA) themes on Brazilian dog owners’ hedonic state. Each quadrant describes an aspect of affect by reference to its valence and arousal. Coloured areas contain positive influences of the theme on the quadrant and white areas a lowering effect on the quadrant. The order of activities in the quadrant is of no significance. Themes in bold text were mentioned by ≥ 10% of participants, those in plain black by 4.0–9.9% and those in grey by 0.01–4.9%.

Figure 3.

Effects of dog human-related activities (DHRA) themes on Brazilian participants’ eudaimonia. Themes represented in bold indicate a high frequency of mentions related to that aspect (10% or higher), themes in black indicate a moderate frequency of mentions (5.0–9.9%) and themes represented in grey had a frequency considered low of mentions (0.01–4.9%). Plus sign describes a positive influence, and the minus sign describes a negative influence.