Dogs fight Black Dog

SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Health | What's up, dog?

I'm a dog person. Not fanatical, but a dog person nonetheless. (Cat people have a good chance of having brains affected by mind altering parasites, remember.)

The link above is to a nice Guardian story on dogs fighting depression. My favourite bit is this:

"Maureen Hennis is chief executive of Pets As Therapy, a charity which has been making the most of the therapeutic benefits of animals for over 20 years. The not-for-profit organisation currently visits more than 4,750 different medical establishments throughout the UK, and Hennis is convinced of the programme's efficacy.

"I'm very lucky because I've visited patients with depression with my own dogs, so I've actually seen the benefits in action. I remember at one of the places we visited there was one woman who would wait for us and when we arrived she would shout, 'There's my ray of sunshine! There's my reason to stay alive!' It was the dog she was talking about, not me." "

So, apart from my advocacy of cognitive therapy, send in the dogs too. I wonder if they help schizophrenics too? Yep, probably.