This Article is From Apr 29, 2010

Poll: A third say pets listen better than husbands

Los Angeles: A third of pet-owning married women in the US said their pets are better listeners than their husbands, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll released on Thursday.

Eighteen per cent of pet-owning married men said their pets are better listeners than their wives.

Christina Holmdahl, 40, talks all the time to her cat, two dogs or three horses, about her husband, naturally.

"Whoever happens to be with me when I'm rambling," said Holmdahl, who's stationed with her husband at Fort Stewart in Georgia.

"A lot of times, I'm just venting about work or complaining about the husband."

She thinks everyone should have a pet to talk to like her horse, Whistle, who's been with her since she was 19.

"We all say things we don't mean when we are upset about stuff," she said.

"When we have time to talk it out and rationalise it, we can think about it better and we can calm down and see both sides better."

It would be a toss-up whether Bill Rothschild would take a problem to his wife of 19 years or the animal he considers a pet, a palm-sized crayfish named Cray Aiken. His daughter brought it home four years ago at the end of a second grade science project.
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