The Brisket Impact: 5 Tales of Pets and Psychological Well being

Although you might assume all eyes have been on Glen Powell during the tornado of media coverage for his summer blockbuster, “Twisters,”  there’s been another kind of red carpet scene-stealer: Powell’s dog, Brisket. That’s right—the star of the promo tour doesn’t even have a cameo in the film. But the Papillon-looking mix served a crucial role for the actor while he was shooting in Oklahoma.

“Sets can be very lonely places,” Powell previously told EW. “And it’s interesting when you see a dog that’s just filling you up with love, how it brings a cast together even more. There’s something wonderful about animals, about how they can bring our walls down a bit and expedite friendships and things like that.”

Powell says he adopted then-puppy Brisket from animal rescue organization the Labelle Foundation in Los Angeles in July 2023. He was going through a breakup at the time, and says he was hit with a moment where he “just had the desire to be a father.” The adorable canine has seemingly been by his side ever since (and Brisket even has his own Instagram account).

The movie-star-turned-dog-dad is hardly the first to recognize the power of pet.

Megan Mueller, PhD, associate professor of human-animal interaction and director of the Pets and Well-Being Lab at Tufts University, says a lot of people report that their pets provide a type of “non-judgmental” emotional support that we can’t find in our fellow humans. Our relationships with animals are just a lot less complicated than those we have with people.

“The science is certainly mixed with regard to whether pets help our mental health in a measurable way,” Mueller says. “That being said, many people report that their animal companions are members of their family and a deeply important part of their lives, and I think that is an important observation.”

When Well+Good put the call out for pet lovers to tell us how their furry friends have helped them cope during difficult periods of time, the response was overwhelming. Brisket and Powell opened the floodgates for all of us, it seems.

Here are five absolutely heartwarming ways that pets have given that love and support we needed in grief, illness, breakups, and more.

1. Hopping forward

Justine Fédronic was living in a studio apartment in Seattle when she got the news in 2017 that she had torn her quad. As a professional runner—a 2016 Olympian competing for France in the 800 meters—it was a devastating call. Already in a post-Olympics slump, as she described it, Fédronic was looking for comfort and companionship.

“I do not recommend doing this, but I went on Craigslist, got in my car and met a lady at a gas station who had a cardboard box full of baby bunnies,” she says. “At the time I just felt lonely and isolated and kind of hopeless. Buying a bunny was the solution.”

Enter: Spunky, the “most special little fluff guy” that Fédronic could find. In fact, she says he had so much love to give that she ended up getting him a friend, Mocha, so he didn’t seem so lonely any time she had to leave the apartment. As it turns out, bunnies like to live in a “fluffle”—they are very social animals.

Fédronic describes the additions to her household as life-changing. While coping with bouts of high-functioning depression, Mocha and Spunky were the reason to get out of bed in the morning. No matter how she was feeling, they still needed breakfast. In times when Fédonic found few reasons to smile, Spunky would happily zoom around the room, bouncing and twisting the air, and she couldn’t help but laugh. During the pandemic, the bunnies would sit at the window and greet all the walkers going by at a time when connection was so scarce.

“Just watching them continue to live their little lives and entertain our neighborhood reminded us that there’s so much joy still to be found in these little micro moments,” Fédronic says. “Watching people realize they were being watched by two bunnies sounds silly now, but it just would make the purest smiles on people’s faces.”

Spunky died in January, but his spirit still touches Fédronic’s life. And makes her smile.

“He kept me moving forward,” Fédronic wrote on Instagram after losing Spunky. “‘You have to figure it out [human], cause I need fresh kale at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. sharp. And a head massage before bed. And my daily lil hug. And also here’s a little kiss cause no matter how your day went, I love you.’”

2. Big love during big grief

Emily Halnon got a devastating call in 2019: Her mother had been diagnosed with papillary serous uterine cancer, a rare and aggressive cancer that would take her life in 13 months. Halnon was living in Eugene, Oregon, and the news from her mom, so far away in Vermont, was shattering.

Brutus, a schnauzer she inherited after a relationship breakup, instantly went to work as her emotional-support pup. Intuitively, at the slightest sign of a sniffle or tears, he’d sit by her side, leaning into Halnon to offer a calming presence.

“Whenever my mom had to call with bad news, she would always ask me, ‘Is your sweetie nearby?’ That’s what she called Brutus,” Halnon says. “You could tell that it was maybe his most important job in the world, to be aware of my emotions and respond to them.”

Brutus was getting on in years during that time, too. If Halnon was upstairs on the phone, he’d scamper to the bottom of the stairs and listen. If he heard her crying, he’d limp up the steps to comfort her.

The dog’s presence filled a relationship void that year that would have been impossible for any human to attempt. Animals aren’t scared of sitting with you through your hard emotions—they don’t run away from them.

“In Brutus’s case, he was sprinting as fast as his gimpy, elderly schnauzer self would let him,” Halnon says. “To have felt so loved and like I was not alone through my mom’s sickness and death was the most powerful thing.”

Not long after Halnon’s mom died, Brutus also passed away, which is part of the story Halnon details in her new memoir, To the Gorge: Running, Grief, Resilience & 460 Miles on the Pacific Crest Trail. It was 2020, and although she had wanted to wait a little while to adopt another dog, Halnon decided that a puppy might be just what she needed to grapple with the grief, on top of the pandemic loneliness.

Dilly was the antidote. A spirited rescue mutt with an adventurous soul, he seamlessly fits into Halnon’s trail-running, wilderness-exploring lifestyle.

“Dilly makes it impossible for me not to laugh every day and not to feel my heart just bursting with love,” Halnon says. “He helped me recognize that the immense pain that I was feeling was directly related to how much love I had for my mom and Brutus—and that was the kind of love I want in my life.”

3. In sickness

Cali and Kobe were just tiny kittens in 2020 when Rebecca Mehra came home from the doctor in a boot, recuperating from a broken ankle she sustained while doing drills at the gym. At the time she had high hopes of making it to the pandemic-delayed U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, so the injury felt devastating on several levels.

“Suddenly I was completely unable to do anything because I was on crutches,” Mehra says. “Animals have this sixth sense when something is wrong, and they never wanted to leave my side.”

It wouldn’t be the last time the gray and orange tabbies would keep her company while she grappled with injuries and illness. In the earlier days of COVID, Mehra came down with the virus. Her husband stayed downstairs while she quarantined in the bedroom. Although she tried to keep the cats away from her, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. They found their way into her isolation chamber to keep her company.

It turned out to be a good thing her kitties insisted on being there. At one point Mehra came down with a 104-degree fever and passed out when she tried to get up to go to the bathroom in the pre-dawn hours.

“I kind of came-to because my cat was licking my face,” she says.

Through all the trials and tribulations Mehra’s endured in the past few years, the stabilizing forces in her Seattle household have been Kobe and Cali. They make it hard to leave, and always joyful to come back.

“It always feels extra special when I know I’m having a really hard day or I’m going through a really hard thing,” Mehra says. “I’ve had bouts of COVID at the wrong times and a lot of bad injuries the last couple of years. I lost my grandma. They cue in when something’s wrong. They won’t leave me.”

4. Making transitions

After many years of yearning for a dog, Rachel Gersten and her husband picked up Hudson, a rescue mutt, in 2022 on a freezing cold night in New Jersey. They adopted him through a rescue organization and the agreed-upon meeting place was “very sketchy in retrospect,” she says, but it all turned out just fine.

The description on the website didn’t match the dog Hudson truly was: “40 pounds and housebroken” was actually “60 pounds and needed training.” Nonetheless, he has become the “most playful, adorable, loving pain in the ass I’ve ever met,” Gersten says, laughing.

Hudson has seen her through a lot: Gersten had two surgeries on her hip that left her bedridden. Hudson was the one who forced her to get moving again, when she had the all-clear from her doctor.

“It was a really dark period of time. Hands down, 2023 was the worst year of my life,” she says. “But when you have a dog, they don’t really let you just stay in bed. Even a short walk around the block always made me feel better afterward.”

Soon, Gersten and her husband decided to move to San Diego. Although his job still required him to be in New York most of the time, they were seeking a better quality of life, especially because Gersten felt increasingly isolated in the city as an immunocompromised person in COVID times. The move was the right call, but it was still hard, she says.

Hudson has played an instrumental part in the life transition, especially during the weeks when Gersten is on her own. Dogs are always giving their humans a reason to connect with others, whether at the dog park or just walking down the street.

“Just that interaction between strangers for five minutes throughout the course of the day was really helpful when I had no other in-person interactions at the time,” she says. “That definitely wouldn’t have happened without him.”

Now that they’ve settled into their new home, Gersten is convinced they’re all living their best lives—especially Hudson, who was never a fan of the East Coast weather. And on days when Gersten feels down, Hudson seems to know when it’s his job to lift her spirits. She remembers an especially difficult day that seemed like it was never going to turn itself around. Hudson became determined to help her out of the funk.

“He was zooming around the apartment, barking at me, throwing his toy up in the air,” she says. “It was the most ridiculous display of nonsense I’ve ever seen. And that’s what made me laugh that day. And then I felt better.”

5. In the ups and downs of fertility

Jenna Clark Embrey and her dog, Roz, found each other in 2015. At the time, her then-boyfriend didn’t want to have children, but within a year of bonding with the dog, Embrey knew she wanted to have a baby.

The relationship ended, but Roz remained by her side during what Embrey described as a “heart-wrenching” period. She leaned on her canine companion and also met her now-husband while she started the process of freezing her eggs. During that process, however, she discovered that she faced significant infertility challenges that would make biological motherhood unlikely, she says.

“I was devastated. Like, severe, severe depression for months,” Embrey says. “Once again, Roz was my rock. I couldn’t have survived without her.”

Fast forward to 2020 and Embrey got quite a pandemic surprise—she became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter, Amelia, in 2021. She even planned a home birth so Roz wouldn’t miss the big day, and she faithfully stayed by Embrey’s side through labor and delivery.

“I’ll never forget that the first memory of seeing my daughter is with Roz’s goober face peering right over her shoulder,” Embrey says.

Now that Roz almost 12 years old, Embrey says they’re living on borrowed time together. Watching dogs age can be excruciating, especially when they’ve seen their humans through the most meaningful chapters of life.

“She means the world to me,” Embrey says. “And now that I have a human kid, I can honestly say that my dog is still my other kid.”