There’s a saying in politics that if you need a friend, get a dog. Now, according to a Swedish study reported by CNN, getting a dog could also mean you’ll be able to keep your friends longer. Or, at least, live longer. If you’re living alone, having a dog lowers your chance of cardiovascular disease and death by 33%. The report speculates that because dogs bring in dirt and love to lick their owners, they help your immune system, to say nothing of the exercise you get from walking them, and having to bend down and clean up their poop. Hunting breeds, such as terriers, retrievers, and scent hounds, lowered the risk of death the most, but any dog will help (although you’ll never convince us that a Chinese Crested Dog helped anyone)
While we’re on the subject of animals, let’s take a moment to remember Tiki, a much beloved giraffe at the Oakland Zoo who was recently euthanized. Tiki, who was 28 (or 95 in giraffe years), was remembered by her keeper as a great mother and grandmother (she had five calves) and shows that giraffes were smarter than once thought, and capable of being trained; she even allowed zookeepers to put a sweater over her shoulders as she got older. “Through her patience and gentle presence, she was a great teacher to us all,” Jessica Real, the senior giraffe keeper at the Oakland Zoo, said. “She broke the barriers of what were standard practices in giraffe care.”
Finally, congratulations to Jesmyn Ward, whose novel Sing, Unburied Sing just won this year’s National Book Award. With that title, it sounds like a book we’d like to read. If you’re dying to read it, too, you can buy it here.
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