Fido could be your ticket to better health

Forget a new treadmill, that trendy yoga class, or a daily walk, a national survey says. All you need is a doggie. The survey by — what else? — the American Animal Hospital Association found that 92 percent of pet owners indicated that pets have joined diet and exercise as a prescription for better health. Pet owners attribute reduced stress levels, improved mental health and physical fitness, and lower blood pressure to spending time with their four-legged companions. The survey of 1,242 pet owners in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada also found that 97 percent of pet owners say that their pets make them smile at least once a day. And if just having a doggie isn’t enough, then you can do yoga with the pooch. According to yet another holiday press release, yoga instructor and author Bruce Van Horn does yoga with his Dalmatian. So enthralled, he produced a Video/DVD titled “Yoga for Healthy Living Presents: Daily Yoga Class.” Both Van Horn and his pooch appear in the video.

SNEWS View: We’re open-minded here, really we are. And we love dogs too, having three of our own at SNEWS world headquarters. But let’s start at the top. About that survey: OK, OK, granted, our treadmill or bike won’t make us smile simply with a glance in its direction, so we guess the four-legged friend wins there. But yoga with a dog? We can just see ourselves now in shavasana, or that corpse-like relaxing pose, trying to breathe and get in touch with our inner selves — until our dogs walks over to lick us on the smacker. And we really can’t envision any one of our pups in Warrior pose either.