Both pet owners and scientists agree that owning a pet has numerous benefits. It decreases stress and anxiety, it helps people who suffer from depression, it encourages responsibility, it enhances social skills and family bonds. It has also been proven that it has actual health benefits like lowering blood pressure or cholesterol levels, easing pain or improving immunity to allergies.

Activities

• Discuss in pairs or in class the reasons why all these benefits can come from having a pet.

• Make sentences about the responsibilities we have when we have a pet. Use modal verbs must/should/have to/can appropriately.

• You are a reporter in a school newspaper and you interview your classmates on the topic of pets. In pairs, act out the dialogue between the reporter and the student, using the following questions and any other of your own:
  • What’s your favourite pet?
  • Have you got one?
  • What makes it difficult to care for a pet?
  • What’s the greatest joy of having a pet?
  • What’s the strangest pet you have heard of?

• Watch this 10 Most Unusual Pets in the World video and answer the following questions:
  • How did the first family end up with a pig?
  • What unusual pastime activity has the reindeer got?
  • What world record does the dog own?
  • How did Roxy find the elephant?
  • What’s special about Hercules?
  • Why is the last girl in the video called the shark whisperer?
  • Which animal has starred in films?
  • What impressed you the most in this video?

• A student who really has a pet stands in front of the class and tells two truths and a lie about their pet. The rest of the students have to detect the lie.

• Write a paragraph about your pet or the pet you would like to have!