Thursday, January 24, 2013

Does your pet notice when you're ill?

This is how I look having the flu (= pale & crappy).
 Flo never leaves my side when I'm sick..

My blog-friend Giora asked an interesting questions in his last comment on my blog: 
"Does your dog notice that you are ill? Any reactions? I never had a dog, but wonder if the dog can feel what is going on with your health."
Yes, Flo notices when one of us is sick. She makes sure to stay very close to us all the time. She seeks body contact and often climbs on top of us to make sure we are warm.

Last night, when I was feeling really bad (having a migraine attack on top of the stupid flu), Flo spent the whole night next to me, snuggling up to me, so that I knew she was there.

I've heard from other dog-owners that their dogs are doing the same for them whenever they are ill. One of my co-workers told me, that his dog would even go out hunting rabbits when his wife was pregnant and presenting his prey to her, wanting to make sure she got enough food during the pregnancy. The dog was very sad when she started throwing up when the dead rabbit was put in front of her...

When I was still having cats, they watched over me, too, when I was sick. They always stayed close and snuggled me whenever I felt especially bad.

Has anybody else made the same experience with their pets?

2 comments:

  1. Pets definitely are well attuned - my Holly hates it when I get cross with the kids, she thinks she is in trouble! Animals really are wonderful, I hope you get better soon.

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  2. Thanks for the response, and you look pretty, even with the migraine. Last month I attended a book event with a medical doctor who told us something interesting about migraine. He said that migraine are caused because there is too much blood in the brain and the blood put pressure on the skull of the head and that is why you feel pain. He said that you need to get the extra blood out of the head like this: Fill your bathtub with cold water and stand inside the water and let your feet get cold. Or maybe stand inside a bucket of ice. Then go out and the body knows that your feet are cold, so it will send blood from the brain to warm the feet, and the migraine will stop. I didn't have migraine recently so didn't try it yet, but give it a try. I am curious to know if it really works.

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