Wednesdays Helpful Pet Tip # 7

So I am outside working in my garden when "OH NO" I had almost forgotten to post my Wednesday Helpful pet tip! But hey it's still Wednesday, so here we go! The topic is FISH. I am not particularly fond of fish. In fact they sometimes make me feel kinda nauseous to look at them. Sure, I can appreciated a bright orange goldfish or one of those clown fishes, wasn't that what Nemo was?  But if I got to a restaurant and there's a fish tank, I want my back to it. Maybe it's because of the "fishpond" incident. When I was young, I'm guessing about 12, so my sister would have been 8. We were told to clean out the fishpond before winter set in. The fishpond was this beautiful cement pond that my father had created for my mother in our backyard. My Mom painted the bottom an aqua blue and we kids helped her fill it with fish accessories like a little castle and bridge and fake coral. It was Gorgeous! My parents liked to sit out in the jalousie porch after dinner and gaze out into the yard. We would hear my father swearing and yelling at a neighbors cat as he dipped his paw into the pond. Over the course of the summer, eventually the cat got all the fish and gave my father another reason to hate cats. So that Fall when we were instructed to clean it out, we somehow never got around to it. Then in the Spring, my Father marched us out there to clean it. I can remember scooping out the slimy leaves and dumping them into a bucket. Gross. Then all of a sudden I scooped up this translucent big  fish with my fingers! I screamed and threw it into the bucket and then ran for the house to show what we had! My Father said that we must have missed seeing it and it had apparently wintered over by feasting on bugs and things in the water. So our Dad put it into our fish bowl with my newly acquired Angel Fish and my sisters Black Molly.
Big mistake. The next day only that big fish was in the bowl. It looked like some alien fish. It had a white-grey almost flesh look to it. And it made me almost gag to look at it. And it had eaten my Angel Fish. Not too long after that my Father sent it to live in the Mississippi via the toilet bowl. The whole experience was upsetting. That is why I am so surprised to come across this information about how therapeutic fish can be!
Who knew! I somehow don't think they would work for me! But at least I remembered the fishpond!
So, I found all this info at the following website:
http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/termsandtables/a/aquariumhealth.htm

And here is why -
Fish Make a Difference:

Researchers have compared the effects of hypnosis vs. an aquarium, fishless vs. fish filled aquariums, and no aquarium vs. having an aquarium. In all cases, having some sort of aquarium reduced blood pressure. Interestingly enough, greater reduction in blood pressure occurred when there were fish in the tank, vs pleasingly decorated, but fishless, tanks. Even watching a video tape of fish has been proven to have therapeutic effects.

Multitude of Benefits:

Seniors who were provided with an aquarium filled with fish had significant blood pressure reduction. Watching fish has been shown to calm children who suffer from hyperactivity disorder. Dental patients who were subjected to hypnosis vs. an aquarium experienced the same or greater benefit from the aquarium. Other studies have shown that dental patients required less pain medication after having watched fish in the office. It's little wonder that physician offices, dental clinics, and even waiting rooms for counselors have traditionally kept an aquarium in the waiting room.

Aquarium Effect on Alzheimer’s:

Studies have shown that seniors who have Alzheimer’s experience a variety of health benefits from watching an aquarium. Alzheimer patients ate more, and required fewer supplements after an aquarium was placed in the dining room. They also exhibited less physically aggressive behaviors.