From the Record Online, here's a collection of anecdotes about how pets help you stay healthy. Here's a sample:
"There was a time I was so sick that I couldn't even get up from a kneeling position. I couldn't even walk up the hill after taking care of the horses in the barn. I was so exhausted," says Bisel, who is vice president of BBG&G, an advertising and public relations firm. "But I could run through the fields at about 25 mph, with the wind blowing through my hair, on top of my horse. It was definitely therapeutic. It helped my muscles, but the greatest thing it did was for my mind."The doctor couldn't believe it. He'd tell me, 'You be careful, but good for you,' " she says.
Although she has to be monitored regularly, she feels she's gotten her life back, and she credits her horses Leo, now deceased, and Mindy, a quarterhorse, with being her pillars of support.