Dr. Cliff Redford

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

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 cats like forget this I'm I'm taking off I don't have anything to do with this this kid and that may develop some anxiety

The other things that they sort of surmised, and of course, they got to do more studies now.

So that means more grants to do this research.

But they felt that because everyone knows cats are more independent and easier to take care of.

Perhaps the families that got cats did so when they already had challenges in their family regarding maybe mental health or just stress and people are working a lot.

So there might have been some other factors that attracted them to having a cat.

Exactly.

And the thing is, is if if the child has some mental health issues or the family is, you know, double income, double working parents, so they're not around as much and that can definitely affect a child's mental health and they want a pet, they're not going to go and get a dog that's going to require a lot more work.

So they did find, when they broke it down, they did find that families with dogs had an average, had no change, no positive, no negative.

Families with goldfish... Hugely increased.

They did have an increased... Really?

Oh, I was just making that up.

No, they absolutely did.

And it was the... I think they, again, surmised that the goldfish is easy to take care of, so the child can really be involved with taking care of that goldfish.

And there's never any fear of sort of, you know, aggression, especially listen to the last segment.

There's never sort of, oh, I don't want to go out and walk my dog.

It's cold out.

I mean, it's not cold in Spain, is it?

I guess it is sometimes.