Therapy pets help patients

A hospital can feel like a waiting room where time stops, so charities in Northern Ireland are sending in dogs to change the mood at the bedside. In a new Pets As Therapy survey taken on February 4-6, 2026, 95% of pet owners in Northern Ireland said a therapy pet in a hospital or care home would make them feel more positive about their stay. (petsastherapy.org) This is not just a Northern Ireland outlier. The same survey of 2,001 United Kingdom pet owners found 89% nationally said therapy animals could improve people’s experience in healthcare settings. (petsastherapy.org) The setup is simple: trained volunteers bring assessed dogs or cats into places that are usually built around alarms, appointments, and pain charts. Pets As Therapy says those visits now reach hospitals, care homes, hospices, and schools, but only one in three newly registered establishments is currently able to secure a visit. (petsastherapy.org) Northern Ireland already has the infrastructure for this. In July 2024, Pets As Therapy received a £19,600 National Lottery Community Fund grant to expand across Northern Ireland, with a plan to recruit and train more volunteers and reach more than 100 locations. (independent.co.uk) At that point, the charity said it had 85 trained volunteers in Northern Ireland and another 30 people on a waiting list to be trained and coordinated for regular visits. That matters because the visits are aimed at places where some patients and residents may get few or no other visitors in a week. (independent.co.uk) Hospitals in Northern Ireland have already started folding the idea into routine care. In November 2025, the Northern Health and Social Care Trust said Pets As Therapy volunteers and dogs were visiting the Macmillan Unit at Antrim Area Hospital and stroke services, after staff noticed patients were missing their pets at home. (derrynow.com) Staff there described the effect in very practical terms: patients in pain or discomfort became calmer, conversations started more easily, and the animals helped bring back memories of pets people had owned before. Before any visit happens, the animal has to pass a full suitability assessment and then be matched to a service by the Trust and the charity. (derrynow.com) The backdrop is a care system with a lot of people in exactly the settings where loneliness can pile up. Northern Ireland’s Department of Health said 11,914 residential and nursing home care packages were in effect on June 30, 2023, including 69% in nursing homes and 31% in residential homes. (health-ni.gov.uk) The evidence base is not magic-dog folklore either, though it is still uneven. A 2024 systematic study in JMIRx Med found animal-assisted therapy was associated across the literature with better well-being, lower stress, and improved social interaction, while noting that study quality and methods still vary a lot from one setting to another. (jmir.org) So the story in Northern Ireland is less about a cute extra and more about a service that people already want, charities are trying to scale, and hospitals are starting to use in a structured way. When 95% of surveyed pet owners say a visit from a therapy animal would make a stay feel better, that is a public appetite most hospital add-ons never get close to. (petsastherapy.org)