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This news about dogs being therapeutic for the soul is everywhere. I even heard a rumour that Access to Work will pay for dogs to enable people to do their job. (Note - this is a rumour that I have been entirely unable to verify so don't all go ringing them at once.)

Working on the basis that any therapy is good therapy, I dragged my husband off to the dog shelter in search of a companion to complete our happy family. Actually, come to think of it, he started it. He thought a dog would be good company for me when he was at work all day and I was home alone. I resisted at first, but then fell in love with the idea - which was when he fell out of love with it. I sobbed that I wanted a little bundle of joy to take out for walks and to sleep at my feet as I tapped away on the computer. And, I argued, it would be good for him too.

I printed off the evidence from the web. "Anyone who has ever come home from a bad day at work to a tail-wagging, face-licking 'hello' knows how easily pets can boost the spirit," gushes . "Having a dog or cat at home can provide the emotional support that a human needs for optimal mental health..."

He wanted a Labrador; I wanted something smaller. We settled on a dachshund, but decided it was simply not fair to spend money on a "new" dog when there were lots of "used" ones in need of rescuing. Oh how benevolent we are.

In the end we got the best of both worlds. At least we thought we did. At the dog shelter, in an enclosure, was whole litter of Jack Russell cross puppies. No idea what they were crossed with, but we were assured that since they came from a Jack Russell, they wouldn't grow too big. At the back, watching everything going on and paying us no notice, sat a beautiful little pup with a white stripe down the middle of his face, alert but calm, and with the biggest, meltingest chocolate eyes. He was the one from the movies.

And so we filled out the paper work and a doggy social worker came to visit, checking that we were suitable parents. I began to wonder if it would be easier to adopt a child, and was somehow terrified she would stumble on our mental health histories, as if that would somehow exclude us from giving him a home.

Eventually little Tibby came home, shaking on my lap, but being ever so good - until he puked all over me just as we pulled into the driveway. Even so, I felt some sort of weird maternal tugging knowing that for the next 13 years or so he would be my special little friend.

I toddled off to see my psychiatrist later that week and told her I'd got a puppy. Oh how she laughed, before saying that perhaps I had enough on my plate without adding a puppy to the equation? "But he'll be good for my mental health," I said. "That's what they all say," she said, rolling her eyes. "I don't suppose it's too late to take him back?"

Take him back? The mere idea! Just because he was chewing up the new carpet, peeing all over the house, and had taken advantage of our extravagant kindness to establish himself as pack leader, allowing him to bite us vigorously every time we challenged his dominance? That would be admitting defeat. And anyway, I'd already grown to love him, even if at five months he was already twice the size of an adult Jack Russell.

And in a weird way, Tibbs is good for my mental health. Sure there are the days (okay, every day) when I'm almost in tears because he is devouring a family heirloom, or incessantly biting my foot, or ripping his bed apart. But he's bought me this whole new world as well; the world of the dog owner. We trot off to the park to meet up with his doggy friends so they can chase each other through the mud, while I get to chat to the other owners, which is a nice way to break up the isolation of sitting at home all day. And we all know that exercise is good for mental wellbeing, so we get up and walk my hubby to the bus stop in the mornings before continuing our constitutional. And last thing at night the three of us take a half hour walk, and hubby and I talk properly, which is something that never happens when the telly is on or we are glued to the internet.

So there is something to this whole pet therapy thing after all. But does it outweigh the stressors? Sometimes. I had to put the dog in the kitchen so I could write this (no, he doesn't sit at my feet as I tap on the keyboard as I'd imagined he would; he eats the cables), and I can hear disconcerting noises.

Time to go and check the carnage.