Dogs Take Our Pain Away

Emergency-room patients who spend just ten minutes with a dog will find relief from pain, according to science. New research to that effect appears in the journal PLOS ONE.

The study gathered data from more than 200 emergency-room patients at the Royal University Hospital Emergency Department in Saskatchewan. Some spent ten minutes with dogs and self-reported their levels of pain on the typical one to 10 scale, while an unlucky control group had to bear their pain dogless. Guess which group reported less pain.

“The findings of this novel study,” the authors conclude,” contribute important knowledge towards the potential value of [emergency] therapy dogs to affect patients’ experience of pain, and related measures of anxiety, depression and well-being.”

Lead author Colleen Dell told CNN, “There is research showing that pets are an important part of our health in different ways. They motivate us, they get us up, [give us] routines, the human-animal bond.”

Dell added that she hopes this study will get humans to stop questioning if therapy dogs are helpful, and to begin figuring out how to get these furry analgesics into our healthcare systems.

We could get addicted to this painkiller.

Photo credit: NationwideDo