How Animals Affect Us makes a significant contribution to the study of how human-animal relations play a significant role in the social, physiological, psychological and emotional development of both children and adults. The broad scope of the work effectively provides a compendium of the potential benefits and dangers of our interactive relations with other sentient creatures, including cognitive development, psychopathology and both psychological and physical rehabilitation.  A diverse range of topics are addressed by contributors who are academic experts in their fields. The book originated from a workshop entitled Directions in Human-Animal Interaction Research: Child Development and Therapeutic Interventions, which took place in 2008. The papers presented at this meeting served as the foundation for the deeper scientific investigations that comprise this volume. This serves to emphasize the academic nature of this work.

The book is divided into three main parts: (i) Methodology, which considers the standards, issues and strategies that are best employed when investigating human-animal interaction (ii) Human Animal-Interactions and Child Development, where issues such as child thought processes, and the relation between development psychopathology and animal abuse are investigated, and finally (iii) Human-Animal Interaction and Animal Health, in which topics are addressed such as such as the relation between childhood obesity and animal relations and the health benefits of pet ownership. When taken as a whole, the volume provides a groundwork from which we can come to comprehensively understand the true nature of our relationships with the animals that we care for, and how they support the development of our children in multi-faceted ways.

When dealing with subjects of this kind it is tempting to make insufficiently justified generalizations, but this book avoids this pitfall by emphasizing that a scholarly comprehension of the impact of animal on different individuals will inevitably also have to account for differences in environment such as family circumstances, the society to which one belongs and the value systems that have been inculcated, and will have to include sufficiently large sample groups.

For those of us who are not acquainted with the current literature and research in this area, the book provides an extensive explanatory introduction to the most important scientific findings that are relevant to the topics under discussion. However, all such is research is critically appraised and evaluated in terms of its explanatory efficacy. Therefore, we are given a comprehensive basis from which to build an extensive understanding of how animals contribute to our mental and physical lives in beneficial ways.

The volume will be of especial use to the academic, as it does not rely on anecdotal accounts to justify its claims. All of the individual chapters are based on robust scientific research and findings are extensively referenced. The reader is compelled to concur with the common driving thesis that there is solid evidence for the effective use of animals for therapeutic purposes, from the working animals that we rely on, such as guide and assistance dogs, to the reliance on animals to aid in psychotherapy. The book spans a wide range of interests and concerns and is multi-disciplinary in its content and approach.  Therefore it will be an invaluable research for both the theoretical and practical study of the physical and psychological health impacts of human-animal interaction.

The purpose of a book such as How Animals Affect Us is not to provide a definitive solution to the question of how the introduction of animals into our network of personal relations can provide beneficial results. Invariably, any attempt to do so would be futile as this is still an emerging and developing area of scientific investigation. When we have finished reading this book we will have greatly expanded our understanding of the affects of human-animal interaction but we will still be left with questions unanswered — many of which we would now like to research for ourselves. For this reason, this book will be of immense value to individuals from a wide range of academic disciplines including the animal scientist, veterinarian, psychologist, ethicist, philosopher and sociologist.

© 2012 Richard H. Corrigan

Richard H. Corrigan (Ph.D), University College Dublin and Malvern College.