WATCH: Man’s Best Friend: Exploring the science behind our deep connection with dogs

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There’s a reason dogs are called “man’s best friend.” Studies show owning a dog can lower blood pressure, reduce stress and decrease risk for cardiovascular disease. Simply put — dogs are good for your heart! But what is the science behind our emotional connections and deep relationships with our canine companions? WBUR senior editor of audience engagement & platforms Meghan Kelly moderated a  conversation with an expert panel on why we love dogs and they love us.

Panelists

About “Five-Dog Epiphany”
In “Five-Dog Epiphany,” Marianne Leone writes about the joy that can be summoned after a great loss, "when you look into the eyes of another damaged creature and know that your happiness is a mirror and an echo and a prayer, and that the little soul reflecting all that energy is happy too, at last." This memoir is a moving and sometimes surprisingly funny exploration of grief and the mutual healing that can occur between rescue dogs and people who have experienced a soul-crushing loss. Leone and her husband, actor Chris Cooper, lost their only child suddenly in 2005. Jesse was seventeen, a straight-A student, and a brilliant poet, who was also quadriplegic and nonverbal except with the assistance of a computer.

When six-year-old Jesse miraculously blurted "dog" to Santa, Goody appeared on his bed on Christmas morning. Goody was followed by Lucky, Frenchy, Titi, and Sugar, all rescues adopted after Jesse’s passing. After Jesse’s death, Leone grew a tumor the size of her premature son at birth, her husband disappeared into dark acting roles (Breach, Married Life), and Leone fainted during the filming of a scene in The Sopranos where she is standing in front of her television son’s coffin.

This is the story of a bereaved couple and a pack of rescue dogs finding their way to a new life, everyone licking their wounds, both corporal and spiritual, and the rediscovery of joy.

About "The Year of the Puppy"
Few of us meet our dogs at Day One. The dog who will, eventually, become an integral part of our family, our constant companion and best friend, is born without us into a family of her own. A puppy's critical early development into the dog we come to know is usually missed entirely. Dog researcher Alexandra Horowitz aimed to change that with her family's new pup, Quiddity (Quid). In this scientific memoir, she charts Quid's growth from wee grub to boisterous sprite, from her birth to her first birthday.

Horowitz follows Quid's first weeks with her mother and ten roly-poly littermates, and then each week after the puppy joins her household of three humans, two large dogs, and a wary cat. She documents the social and cognitive milestones that so many of us miss in our puppies' lives, when caught up in the housetraining and behavioral training that easily overwhelms the first months of a dog's life with a new family. In focusing on training a dog to behave, we mostly miss the radical development of a puppy into themselves — through the equivalent of infancy, childhood, young adolescence and teenager-hood.

By slowing down to observe Quid from week to week, "The Year of the Puppy" makes new sense of a dog's behavior in a way that is missed when the focus is only on training. Horowitz keeps a lens on the puppy's point of view — how they (begin to) see and smell the world, make meaning of it and become an individual personality. She's there when the puppies first open their eyes, first start to recognize one another and learn about cats, sheep and people; she sees them from their first play bows to puberty. Horowitz also draws from the ample research in the fields of dog and human development to draw analogies between a dog's first year and the growing child — and to note where they diverge. "The Year of the Puppy" is indispensable for anyone navigating their way through the frustrating, amusing and ultimately delightful first year of a puppy’s life.