ORIGINAL PAPER Acquiring a Pet Dog Significantly Reduces Stress of Primary Carers for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Prospective Case Control Study

The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract This study describes the impact of pet dogs on stress of primary carers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Stress levels of 38 primary carers ac-quiring a dog and 24 controls not acquiring a dog were sampled at: Pre-intervention (17 weeks before acquiring a dog), post-intervention (3–10 weeks after acquisition) and follow-up (25–40 weeks after acquisition), using the Par-enting Stress Index. Analysis revealed significant im-provements in the intervention compared to the control group for Total Stress, Parental Distress and Difficult Child. A significant number of parents in the intervention group moved from clinically high to normal levels of Parental Distress. The results highlight the potential of pet dogs to reduce stress in primary carers of children with an ASD