Animal-assisted therapy dates back to ninth-century Belgium, where dogs were used to help calm restless patients. Physical and mental health care providers have been recording the benefits from patient contact with dogs for nearly 1200 years!

Dogs generate a special kind of energy, and children in hospitals, seniors in nursing homes, families in domestic abuse shelters, prisoners, shut-ins, staff and health-care providers all respond to it. Some dogs provide physically therapeutic exercise when patients throw balls for them, groom them or take them for walks. Others stimulate people to talk and remember the past. The dogs don't really need to do anything beyond being friendly and available. But the benefits they provide, simply by connecting with people, are incalculable.

Please, watch this link

"Moments with Baxter"