Millions of people around the world had been suffering from loneliness and social isolation even before the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. However, the pandemic has only exacerbated this criti...
The 8-week study is one of the first designed to examine if dog interaction might benefit military veterans’ mental health. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University, the University of Maryland and...
Human Animal Interaction Human animal interaction (HAI) studies have traditionally relied on observed behaviour to gain insights into how people and animals engage with each other. But such appr...
In any animal-assisted therapy setting, the safety and welfare of all involved are paramount – from the students and other participants to the staff and the animals. To ensure these interventions are...
A new study in the open-access journal Animals examines the links between pet ownership, loneliness, and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also provides evidence that many people perce...
Across the developed world, populations are ageing. On one level this is great news: we are all living longer. But the downside is a growing raft of health and social problems that can make the later ...
Young people are often sagely advised that their schooldays are the “best days of their life”, but could they be made even better by the addition of a non-human classmate? In some schools, along with ...
Britain has long been thought of as a nation of pet lovers. Nearly half of UK households have at least one pet, but the last 40 years have seen many changes in attitudes to animals and their ownership...