Humanlike animal behavior. has a striking effect. Dogs and eats bolster our morale and make us feel special, because they offer us intense loyalty and do not criticize us.【66】Many people need a caring role in order to feel that they matter, and pets make them feel needed. No matter what arrangements the humans in your life may have made for themselves, if you have a pet there is always someone who will miss you if you do not come home tonight. Taking in a pet can help children to have a greater sense of a contributing role in the family if they take responsibility for the pet's care. Similarly, a dog or cat can help parents whose children have grown up and left home — it can be an antidote to the 'empty nest syndrome'.【67】Better self-esteem from pet ownership and having someone to care for are of benefit to the lonely. Pets also combat the understimulation that lonely people suffer.【68】Even when the animals you keep are not very human, they can help to combat the effects of loneliness by providing positive 'solitary activity.【69】Even by simply walking your dog in the park you are more likely to become involved with other people. Like babies in strollers, dogs on leashes are conversation ice-breakers—they are appealing, and it is socially safe to question strangers about them. A dog, cat or cagebird is someone to talk to. Most pet owners do not really look upon these companions as other species but rather as unique individuals, not quite as 'animal' as their wild Brethren. They talk to their pets and feel that there is a reciprocal understanding of moods—a mute communication. And they feel free to say to pets what is really on their minds, thus releasing many of their everyday tensions and anxieties.【70】Even a small but noisy dog is as effective at keeping burglars out as many sophisticated electronic systems. Its inherited urge to join in the cooperative defense of territory makes it the classic watch animal.