Sometimes friendly ears are furry ones

Apart from being popular pets, dogs have been trusted helpmates since their domestication at least 15,000 years ago. But using dogs for therapy has become more popular recently, with humans turning to their four-footed friends for help recovering from child abuse, dealing with long-term illnesses and, since at least 1999, teaching struggling children to read. Read more about how some children show remarkable reading improvement by reading aloud to dogs in this article from The Washington Post.