Pets can improve your life The (0) of animals in helping people recover from a range of health and emotional problems has long been (1) recognised. Now a survey reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology appears to show that owning a pet can (2) healthy individuals, too. A number of experiments, (3) by two universities in the United States, indicate that pet owners are generally happier, healthier, fitter, more confident and better able to (4) with everyday issues than non-owners. The researchers discovered that individuals have just as (5) a relationship with the key people in their lives, in (6) words family and friends, as they have with their pets. And although they found no (7) that people choose emotional relationships with pets over relationships with other people, a study of university students showed that owning a pet helped them (8) over the break-up of a relationship with a partner.