Dr. Cliff Redford

However, this study, which I think was done in Spain, basically looked at families with children from like infants all the way up to six-ish, seven years old, thousands of families.

And they looked at

All animals, dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, turtles, goldfish, everything.

Goldfish.

Great listeners.

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.

Oh, okay.

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.