Dog lovers everywhere will be delighted, but possibly not surprised, to read about an American organisation, Court House Dogs, http://courthousedogs.com.

Court House Dogs, with the tag line “Promoting Justice with Compassion”, was established to promote the use of dogs to provide emotional support for human users of the legal system. The organisation develops and promotes Courthouse Dog Programmes, which might, for example, use a specifically trained dog to make the process of a victim giving evidence against an alleged attacker, a less traumatic one.

The Labrador owners amongst us won’t be surprised to hear that Labradors score highly on temperament and personality for these critical roles.