Dr. Cliff Redford

And they basically, you know, they recognize that half of the households, 52% of the households had pets and the other 52% didn't.

And they basically did different questionnaires with the family members, therapists with the children, et cetera, et cetera.

And they found overall, out of those 52% of the families that had pets, the children actually didn't have better mental health scores.

In fact, their mental health scores were reduced.

Wow.

What?

Now, then they broke it up into species.

And this is where it gets interesting.

Anyone who listens to your show regularly, David, knows that you are a cat lover and I am more of a dog lover.

That's true.

Probably less.

Probably not.

Yeah, probably less.

But they found, and it's because of the independence of cats, that families with cats only, these scores were noticeably reduced.

And they think it's because cats aren't as social as dogs are, especially with cats

children, especially with young kids who, you know, they got peanut butter smeared on their face and they got sticky fingers and they don't quite know how to, how to, how to pet.

And they sort of half hit and pet and they're a little rough with the cat.

So the cat's like, forget this.

I'm, I'm taking off.

I don't have anything to do with this, this kid.