Chances are, you will be familiar with the term “man’s best friend”. You may even have a particular image associated with it in your head.
You may think of Argos, the beloved dog of Odysseus from The Odyssey, or Hachikō, the dog who waited nine years outside Shibuya Station for his deceased owner to return. On television, you might think of shows like Pete Wicks: For Dogs' Sake or Nick Grimshaw’s Bad Dog Academy on Channel 4.
“Man’s best friend” though generally understood to be referring to humanity as a whole, is what’s known as an androcentric idiom, meaning it contains language that centres the male experience. It’s an old-fashioned term – you know it, we know it – but this type of language is still worth paying attention to.
The reason why is that it assumes one gender identity as the default. This, in turn, forces us to ask an obvious question: what identity – and what relationship – is being overlooked in that assumption?
Lately, there has been heightened media interest in the relationship between women and dogs. Last year, research published in the journal Behavioural Sciences found that spending time with dogs was able to slow cellular ageing in women. We also saw news sources pick up on studies from a few years prior: "Women Sleep More Peacefully With Their Dogs Than Their Partners, Study Says," one read. "Science Confirms Women Love Their Pets Just As Much As Their Kids," read another.
A popular narrative of late has been that women are getting dogs as a substitute for children. Globally, birth rates have been declining and, for some, preferences are changing. All this caused Grazia to ask, “Are Women Really Getting Dogs Instead Of Having Babies?”
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The women Country Living spoke to, aged between 24 and 71, revealed another story. We found that dogs were able to offer something a human perhaps couldn’t: unique relief from the everyday pressures that come with being a woman.
When we asked these women how their dogs were able to comfort them, one answer frequently came up – their dogs were able to provide a level of either physical or psychological safety.
According to a 2024 survey commissioned by ITV News, 81% of young women have said that they feel unsafe walking home at night. Data from the 2021 the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) revealed that three out of five women (aged 16-34) had experienced at least one form of harassment in the 12 months prior.
Catherine, 58, told us that she felt safer walking at night with her Goldendoodle, Rosie, because her dog was able to act as a “deterrent” to potential threats. “There are so many things you have to think about as a woman – is my hair tied back in a ponytail so someone can grab it if you’re out at night? Who’s that behind me? How am I holding my keys? There’s a constant thing going on in your head,” she says. “But with a dog, you just don’t have it in the same way. Dogs will calm the mind, and I think they know it.”
For Lolly, 25, the reassurance comes when she is sleeping at night. Though she doubts that her one-and-a-half-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Todd, could take on an intruder, she finds his alertness comforting. “I know that he will pick up on a sound way before me,” she says, describing having a dog as a partial “house security system”. “That’s why people put those stickers in their window saying, Beware: a Rottweiler lives here,” she says.
Registered psychologist Dr Tara Quinn-Cirillo, who also runs the Human Animal Welfare Alliance, dives into this in more detail, explaining: “It is a tricky topic, but women do have to worry more about safety, and safety at night, than men do.
"There’s a physical element in terms of being able to deal with a predator but also, it impacts your independence – do you want to live alone? Where do you live? We have to think about more of these things than men.”
Tara describes dogs as being able to reassure women on multiple levels. “You know that your dog can protect you, but also it allows you more freedom, independence and autonomy, which is always really important,” she adds.
But it seems dogs don't just reduce anxiety around physical safety for women; they are also able to reduce stress more generally.
Ella, 24, describes the “mindfulness of stroking the dog” at the end of a hard day. “It’s grounding – it reminds you that you’re in a safe space at home,” she explains. “If you’re feeling a bit anxious or stressed, you can’t help but calm down when they’re lying there so relaxed.”
“I firmly believe that pets can be real de-stressors,” Catherine tells us. “I think with women in particular – not all women, or in all environments – find when you’re going out to work and you come back, often it’s the kids, it’s the dinner, it’s the household chores, it’s the paying the bills, it’s the other stuff, so you never leave the stress behind,” Catherine says.
“But then you sit down and the dog sits on top of you. It sort of pins you there, and you go, 'Oh, ok, this is nice' and then they give you a lovely big sigh and you absent-mindedly stroke them – how can it not de-stress you?”
According to workplace stress research conducted by Ciphr in 2024, on average, women in the UK are more likely to report feeling stressed every day than men with the numbers standing at 14% compared to 9% of men. A further 91% of women reported feeling stressed at least once a month compared with 80% of UK men.
Tara explains that just stroking or being around the warmth of a dog can help soothe a person’s “threat system”. “What people don't realise is that we have an in-built self-soothing system, and that's the system that helps to regulate, calm and then reduce all of those hormones flooding our system. Dogs are really good at helping us activate that,” she says.
For the women we spoke to, it seems that dogs don’t just reduce stress on a physical level, they are also able offer a relief from a different type of pressure.
“If I go to work not wearing mascara, someone is undoubtedly going to ask me if I’m feeling poorly, whereas the dog is not going to care,” Ella tells us. “They’re happiest to see you when you’re playing with them, walking them, feeding them. They’re not happiest to see you when you’ve just done your hair or put your makeup on.”
Sarah, 71, grew up with dogs and describes their lack of judgement when it comes to physical appearance as “the gift that keeps on giving”. “They take you at face value. They look at you, they make a judgement as to whether you’re happy or not, and they react accordingly. As long as they’re familiar with you, it doesn’t matter if you have three heads or ten feet – it doesn’t matter as long as you have that relationship with them.”
According to a body image survey conducted by the The Women and Equalities Committee in 2020, “over 6 in every 10 women feel negatively about their bodies.” The report cited “Diet culture, post-partum pressures, being bombarded with images of photoshopped, edited and sexualised women” as being amongst the causes of these negative feelings.
For some women, a dog’s inability to adopt these socio-cultural pressures comes as a relief. A dog doesn't judge them for how someone looks, or for how they choose to express themselves emotionally.
“Sometimes when I’m irritated with someone at home, I can feel my irritation being perceived a certain way because I’m a woman – that I’m seen to be overreacting when I don’t necessarily think I am,” Ella tells us. “But a dog matches your emotions, they feed off your emotions. They don’t judge them and interpret them in any gendered way.”
Tara explains that, by allowing women to express themselves without judgement, dogs are giving them space to emote safely without being shamed. “Women’s mental health and mental health related to hormones have been shamed and named for centuries,” Tara tells us. “We should be allowed to say, 'this is what my hormones are doing, and this is how I’m feeling' – to say, 'I’m angry'. It's okay to express it, and it’s safer to do so.”
“I do think women get judged a lot – by other women, by men, by society. It’s like that monologue in the Barbie movie that everyone goes on about. You can’t get it right, and it’s true,” Catherine says. “But the dog doesn’t care. The dog doesn’t care that I’ve put on all these kilos with menopause. She’s not noticed – but she does care about my wellbeing, which is always very comforting.”
When we spoke to these women, they expressed comfort in the fact that their dog wouldn’t shame them for things that society might. Dogs, we heard, didn’t care if you were menopausal or if your house was a mess, if you were “too” emotional or angry, or if you weren’t looking your best on any given day. They were sensitive to their owner’s feelings and often sought to comfort them, but they never stereotyped them in the way that a human might.
“As a woman, you’re constantly pre-empting negative judgements and trying to avoid them – which you just don’t have to do in front of dogs,” Ella tells us. This, it seems, provides a unique and very powerful form of relief for some women.
Whether it’s making you feel safer when you walk home at night, reducing your everyday stress or simply providing some respite from gender-related biases, for some, it seems that dogs are able to alleviate the very real stresses that come with being a woman.
When we spoke to owners, past and present, about the benefits of having a dog, one answer repeatedly came up: it was the love. For women, it seems, the unconditional nature of this love is what makes having a dog so meaningful today. It is a love without human judgement, prejudice or gendered bias – and in this world, that is quite the comfort.
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Liz Lane is Senior Writer for House Beautiful. Writing about everything from gardening tips and decorating trends to the symbolism behind Pedro Pascal's apartment in Materialists, she’s particularly interested in the intersection where style and pop culture meet. When she’s not working on digital pieces, she’s editing videos or writing for print. Liz has previously written for Red and Good Housekeeping, and she studied English at UEA and Oxford University.
