DT Fine Art

A good friend will make you laugh, defend you in an argument, cheer you on when you’re doing well and cheer you up when you’re feeling sad. Best buds can be good for your health, too. Maintaining close relationships means less stress and a longer life.

And you don’t even have to be human.

Just as with people, animals of other sorts can benefit from having a BFF. New studies show that animals with someone they can count on — to get them out of a scrape, share food or deliver a kind gesture — are more likely to reproduce and are better at fighting disease.

Such findings suggest that the need for a trusted, dependable companion goes way back in time. If so, friendship may confer evolutionary advantages.

“It’s beginning to look like a strong, evolutionarily ancient phenomenon that’s shared by many social species,” says Dorothy Cheney, a biologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who has studied primate relationships for four decades.

Many of the behaviors that hint at animal friendships have been observed in the field. Studies of monkeys, horses and chimpanzees reveal that individuals are selective about whom they spend time with or feed near. Some male chimpanzees are more likely to hang out together, groom each other, share meat and accompany one another on hunts or border patrols. Female baboons will groom some peers more than others, and are more likely to come to the aid of someone who recently groomed them.

Further studies find that female baboons closely bonded to a few other females have more surviving offspring and often live longer. Similar results have been found in elephants, dolphins and rodents, as well as in horses and chimps.

With these friendly findings in mind, researchers are working to tie together animals’ behavior and physiological responses over time in hopes of better understanding the benefits of having a buddy. Recent work shows, for example, that a social-bonding hormone makes monkeys more generous with others. Other studies are turning to genes to try to understand why some animals win out when it comes to popularity.

A major part of a politicians daily life has always been the ubiquitous photo-op, and besides kissing babies, nothing may be used more than animals to try to highlight the candidates softer, more human side to the American public.

Yet, as with everything in politics, animal instinct has its perils.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has been dogged this election cycle by a story that he once drove to Canada with his dog Seamus strapped to the roof of the family car — something New York Times columnist Gail Collins makes a habit of mentioning every time she writes about Romney.

President Lyndon Johnson faced similar backlash from animal lovers in the 1960s after a photo printed in LIFE Magazine showed him holding up his pet beagle by the ears.

From President Bill Clintons walk with Buddy after admitting to an improper relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky to current first pet Bo playing in the snow — the NewsHour dug through the archives to find some of the most memorable photos of politicians with animals.

If you know of others that we have missed please share below.

Editors Note: An earlier version of this report misstated the first name of New York Times columnist Gail Collins.