A new US study has found a pet dog better for a person's mental health than either spouse or a friend.
The study,to be presented to the annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society, looked at stress from different things ranging from giving a public speech to doing mathematics. In the test, 240 couples were asked to do the tasks with a pet or a friend, and then with their spouses.
"In this study one type of support a pet dog , was clearly more effective in controlling stressful situations"
the researh team from the university of buffalo school of medicine and bio-medical Sciences said
"resuts showed that under stressful conditions ... participants received the least benefit from having only their spouse present," and the most benefit when just their dog was present," the American Psychosomatic Society conclude in its precis of the study