Dave’s Diary: Furry Pets Boost Academic Performance!

We are in the middle of our Pet Idol promotion where we ask you to send in a picture of your dog in hopes of winning cool prizes. We hope you still will, but for all the love we pour out on our family pooch, perhaps we’ve backed the wrong horse, er… critter!  While the family dog will lavish you with loyalty, if you want your children to do better in school -- get them a chinchilla!

Hey, Mom’s been asking for a coat for years, right?

A new study reported on WebVet found a link between better performance in the classroom and kids who have pets. Surprisingly, it was the chinchilla that emerged as the most likely animal to boost a child's cleverness, with 55% of owners reporting an increase in creativity.

When is it comes to basic homework, you might want to consider adopting mice or rats, as 92% of rodent owners reported a better performance on assignments. Rats beat dogs? Yes! 92% compared with 86% for children who own dogs. Child cat owners' performances were only up 80% -- so dogs beat cats, and rodents beat both. Don’t that beat all!