In the field of psychological counseling and treatment, intervention methods with clear treatment goals with the help of animals are called animal-assisted therapy and have a pedigree stretching back nearly 60 years.

In 1961 Dr Boris Levinson, a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist who practiced and taught in New York, presented to the annual convention of the American Psychological Association a discovery relating to animals that he had made in the course of his clinical work.

During one treatment, Levinson encountered a child with severe expression and communication problems. By chance, the child shared a few minutes of solitude with Levinson's dog Jingles. When Levinson returned to the room, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the child who had been so taciturn was "talking" to Jingles.

In a follow-up study, Levinson found that this kind of situation was not isolated, the presence of dogs also helping other children who were silent and had difficulty expressing themselves during treatment.

Levinson thus became the father of pet therapy, and his felicitous discovery contributed to the development of animal-assisted therapy as we know it today.

Animal-assisted therapy has since attracted the attention of many pet lovers, therapists and researchers in the West. In fact it has been suggested that the use of animals in treating humans goes back much earlier.

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, once had a chow chow named Jofi that was said to be with Freud when he treated patients. Freud said that at first he felt it was only he whom Jofi would make feel at ease, but he later discovered that the dog had the same effect on visitors, particularly younger ones.

Wu Qi, founder of Paw For Heal in Shanghai, says keeping pets can also give people, especially children, a more personal experience of the "meaning of life".

"From accepting these little friends who suddenly appear in life, to learning to share and help, to accumulating a certain amount of hands-on ability, and finally to learning to accept the passing of life, this is of great help to children's growth and understanding of life."