Emotional support animals massively help people that suffer from mental health issues. They help provide individuals with treatment and offer an excellent coping mechanism.
In a lot of circumstances, people suffering from severe mental health issues might only get out of bed in the morning because of their emotional support animal.
By providing love, care, and affection, the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and learning disabilities can be reduced.
When most of us think about emotional support animals, we immediately think of dogs, however, there are many, many more animals that can help.
In this post, you’ll find a list of animals that can be emotional support animals and how they help.
You might be surprised by the animals you find on our list so make sure you keep reading if you want to learn more!
Dogs
We’ll start with the most common emotional support animal. Dogs are the most common emotional support animal because they share such a good connection with people.
In fact, studies suggest that dogs understand and communicate better with humans than any other animal.
They are fluffy, soft, fuzzy, and adorable. What’s not to like? Individuals also get great comfort from holding and cuddling a bunny rabbit.
Having said that, rabbits actually make great emotional support animals because they are shy, small, and quiet.
Of course, a rabbit’s loving nature is incredibly important too, but thanks to their sheer size they can be kept in small spaces and require little care.
They also don’t need a large open space to roam or regular walks like a dog.
Hamsters
On the topic of small animals, the tiny, fluffy fur ball that is the hamster also makes a brilliant emotional support animal.
Hamsters have a naturally calm personality and a soothing presence which helps to calm those struggling with emotional outbursts.
They can curl up in your hands to provide you with mental relief.
Keeping an emotional support hamster won’t break your bank either. They are independent, affordable, and occupy a very small space.
Birds
Birds are excellent when it comes to providing individuals with emotional support as they are the only animal that people can truly interact with.
Research has shown that birds are the only species of animal that can replicate human speech.
As a result, a trained bird, for example, a parrot, provides sufferers with a companion they can always communicate with.
Your support bird will be there to talk to you whenever you use the words you’ve taught it.
Caring for a bird is also quite low maintenance. You don’t need to worry about litter boxes or taking them outside for exercise.
Chickens
The next one may surprise you, but when trained correctly and taught to socialize with humans, chickens have many great qualities that make them fantastic emotional support animals.
What many people don’t realize is that chickens can be very affectionate animals that will happily stay by their owner’s side.
Some chickens can even perform tricks that will help calm those struggling with anxiety.
Anyone who has enough space in their yard will also find that chickens are very low-maintenance, needing little human care.
Llamas And Alpacas
Finally, we have llamas and alpacas. Llamas and alpacas seem like two more very random emotional support animals, but when raised around humans, they can provide amazing emotional support.
Llamas and alpacas are naturally very gentle, empathetic, and friendly animals that can be used to reduce stress, depression, and anxiety.
Thanks to their beautifully soft coats, most people enjoy giving them a good stroke and cuddle too.
While both offer great support, the alpaca is usually more approachable. Due to their size, most emotional alpaca and llama support is provided via a therapy farm.
Final Thoughts
That concludes our list of animals that can be excellent support animals.
Emotional support animals provide sufferers of mental health issues, learning disabilities, and emotional problems with love, care, and affection.
It is that love, care, and affection that decreases the symptoms of illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
As you can see from our list, there are lots of different animals that make good emotional support animals. While some may seem pretty obvious, others have probably suprised you.
We’d be interested to know how many emotional support animals you knew about before you read this post.
The best emotional support animals are animals that provide plenty of love and companionship whilst not requiring too much care and attention.
Hi, I’m Anna Granger and I have had my therapy dog, Bunny, for three years now. I have had a severe case of anxiety since my teenage years, so much so that I wasn’t leaving my house. I remained indoors for almost an entire year before my parents encouraged me to seek professional advice.
The result of that was Bunny - a 5 year old labrador who follows me around everywhere and is trained to detect when I’m about to have an anxiety attack. Through our three years together, Bunny can even sense when I’m feeling just a little bit anxious and work to calm me down.
