U.S. Olympic swimming team loses honorary member Izzo

Izzo, a therapy dog who worked with swimmers at the U.S. Olympic trials earlier this month and was named honorary member of the team heading to Paris for the Summer Olympics next month, has died, WTHR Channel 13, NBC affiliate in Indianapolis, Indiana, reported. The ten-and-a-half-year-old Labrador-husky mix was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer before the trials and given just a few weeks to live, according to The Washington Post. For the past eight years,...

Cockroaches and lizards as therapy animals? Apparently, it works

The use of animals as therapy partners to help people recover from various physical and mental illnesses is not a new concept. What might be unusual is the use of insects and reptiles. We are not referring to butterflies and turtles here, but others in their genera that usually tend to make people jump in fright or disgust. Sure, El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte) in Sergio Leone’s classic For a Few Dollars More (1965) used...