Long life | 13 October 2016

Monty Don, the television gardening presenter, always comes across on screen as irrepressibly cheerful and enthusiastic, but this is a misleading impression. In fact, he gets black moods. ‘It’s no secret that for many years I’ve suffered from depression,’ he said last week at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. He had tried Prozac and cognitive behavioural therapy, but the only treatment that had worked for him was provided by his dog. ‘If you are unwell, physically or mentally, a dog is a huge comfort,’ he said. ‘Dogs heal. There is plenty of evidence to show that.’

I was glad to hear this praise at a time when the word dog is more famously being used as a term of disparagement. Donald Trump had been contemptuously calling women dogs, while Robert de Niro batted the insult back to him when he said: ‘He is utterly stupid, he’s a punk, he’s a dog, he’s a pig.’

But the truth is that most people like dogs and value their companionship, and this seems to have been the case since almost the start of human civilisation. Archaeological researchers now think that at least one dog accompanied a human on a journey from York to Stonehenge 7,000 years ago; and even Trump is said to be very fond of his golden Labrador.

But can dogs really help against depression? I had never thought about this until Monty Don talked about it last week; but yes, I think they can. I have had dogs as pets throughout my life, but have never before seen any of them as having therapeutic value, probably because I haven’t felt in need of therapy. Of late, however, I have known what it’s like to feel depressed.

As Bette Davis once said, ‘Old age ain’t no place for sissies’; and I fear that I am a bit of a sissy.