Dog Therapy in Waiting Rooms Calms and Eases Pain

Maybe.

They may be hairy, and sometimes smelly and droolly, but dogs may lower pain and stress levels for patients with chronic pain, a new study suggests.

Study results show that chronic pain patients reported less depression and fatigue and had lower mean pain scores when they waited for their outpatient appointment with a dog companion and its handler compared with those who opted to wait without company.

"There's actually good science to suggest that dog therapy should be a useful thing," Dawn Marcus, MD, from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania, told Medscape Medical News.

Unless...

Physician, lawyer up.