To anyone who has experienced such relationship previously or currently with a pet. There are thousands of people throughout the whole world that own pets and research shows how those people benefit from their dog or cat, horse, fish, etc. both physically, emotionally and mentally. Such as people with anxiety tend to have a dog around them to ease their stress, heart rate and blood pressure levels allowing them to not break out into an attack as often. Also elderly people who have a pet tend to have better physical health, it prevents strokes from happening, better attitude, less doctors’ visits, physically fit, etc.
For the past 6 weeks in my Honors Composition class, I was forced to read the book Life of Pi which in fact is very boring throughout the first 80 pages but once you get to chapter 35 and so on its very intriguing, at least in my opinion. Basically the whole main idea throughout most of the story is how the main character Pi learned how to survive at sea in the company of a Bengal tiger which is known to be a very dangerous and vicious animal. The way Pi learned to survive was doing such things such as training a Bengal tiger in a short amount of time and space. Learning new techniques in order to catch more food supply for both himself and the tiger. Basically he survived based off of the relationship he created with the tiger.
Events that caught my interest and attention on this certain topic of open letter was when visitors go to the Pondicherry zoo and throw things at the animals provoking a negative reaction. They do this due to lack of knowledge and consideration towards the animal. If they were to have the knowledge a zoo keeper has they would understand that the animal is not dangerous unless it feels invasion of territory or feeling of personal danger. Something else that sparked my attention throughout the story was when Richard Parker started to make prusten sounds towards Pi sending out the message that the tigers intentions are not harmful. It also initiated the relationship Pi and the tiger continue to grow throughout the story. The end of the story is particularly my favorite and the most attention catching due to the fact that one major factor of Pi’s survival. In the way that Richard kept Pi busy in the means of finding new ways to catch a bigger supply of food and water to split with Richard. Finding an effective strategy to train Richard the way he did. Also protecting one another from any threat.
My personal connection that lead me to the issue of the relationship between animals and humans is I personally owned a dog in California at the age of 5-10. The way Richard Parker brings company to Pi in order to feel the need to keep going through his day is sort of the same feeling I got when I was around my dog. It allowed me to look forward to the next day playing with him on the swim or running through the sprinklers, going for a walk, getting to feed him is favorite meal since he hated dog food with a passion. I closely related to the book in the way that I trained my dog to not sit in the coaches when allowed inside the house and to only pee and poop in the appropriate designated area.
As mentioned at the start there are multiple positive benefits on humans as to having a pet like Richard Parker did on Pi’s survival throughout the book “Life of Pi”. In 2002 researchers figured out that people with a dog or cat had a lower risk of heart disease and lower level of stress allowing the owner to perform better. Also a German study was collected in 2 different years 1996 and 2001 in which it was concluded that people who owned a pet throughout those years had decreased the amount of times a person visits the doctor. http://center4research.org/healthy-living-prevention/pets-and-health-the...
In 2006 it was found that Pet owners have higher self-esteem, more positive, more ambition and greater satisfaction over life. Animal- assisted therapy can be used as an escape from a nursing home or hospital, allows you to reduce depression and become more social. Allows patients with disorder to not feel isolated and help to stimulate mental activity through animal interactions. http://www.greensburgdailynews.com/news/local_news/animal-assisted-thera...
The connection I had with the book is the impact an animal has on a human not only physically, mentally but as well as emotionally wise to. Such a connection allows a human to view things in a different aspect like me when I see a puppy it lightens me up, I say the common “aww, it’s so cute”. Those simple four words brings a smile to my face. Also it brings the feeling of company such as when I used to own a dog I would take it on walks and I felt like I had some sort of protection at my side. Also owning that dog allowed me to look forward to going outside, which lead me to being more physically active. My dog also kept me busy allowing me to lose track of time since I would be so focused on having fun with my dog until my grandma would go outside telling me to go eat dinner since I ignored the yelling. Those experiences allowed me to find such a connection with the book and inspired the thinking for this open letter.
