“Happiness means independence. It means the freedom to live my life the way I want, and that is exactly what Niilo enables me to do. For me, happiness means Niilo.”

Ten year old black Labrador assistance dog Niilo and wheelchair user Elina Jokisuu are a familiar sight around Helsinki, Finland. “Niilo makes me happy by being my constant companion,” says accessibility consultant Elina. “He makes me feel like together we can do anything.”

It’s no secret that dogs make us happy. Numerous studies have shown that dogs can increase our self-esteem, reduce depression, alleviate stress, help us deal with loneliness and anxiety, and encourage us to form social bonds with other people. But for tens of thousands of people living with a disability around the world, an assistance dog offers much more.

“Research shows that dogs can play a huge role in alleviating social isolation and loneliness, and bringing more happiness and joy into our lives,” says Dr Angela Hughes, a veterinary geneticist and scientific communications veterinarian with Royal Canin, a leader in science-based cat and dog health nutrition. “A lot of people with disabilities experience a world which can feel really small if they don’t have the facilities and the ability to get out and about.”

“Assistance dogs act as a kind of social icebreaker. For people with an assistance dog, the amount of interaction and engagement with other people is dramatically different. So the dogs not only give them more mobility and accessibility, but they also get more people to engage, and human interaction can be very important for happiness,” she adds.

Dog owners celebrating the International Day of Happiness on March 20 already know the joy their canine companions bring – and they can point to solid scientific evidence to back it up. A number of studies have shown that when dogs and humans interact with each other, both of them exhibit a surge in oxytocin, the so-called ‘love hormone’. Other research suggests that simply stroking a dog lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol. In one survey, an astonishing 84 percent of post-traumatic stress disorder patients paired with an assistance dog reported a significant reduction in symptoms, and 40 percent were able to decrease their medication.

“Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, many people were experiencing increased social isolation and loneliness,” says Dr Hughes. “The pandemic made that worse, but we found for example that households with dogs found it easier to deal with. The dogs brought a lot of happiness in those times.”

Elina knows first hand the difference having an assistance dog makes to her mental as well as physical wellbeing. “I have had an assistance dog all my adult life, but there have been times when I have had to manage without one temporarily. For example, my previous dog died very suddenly and there was a gap before I got Niilo. That was a terrible, miserable time for me,” she says. 

“Niilo makes me feel like I’m not ‘disabled’, even though I obviously and visibly have a functional impairment. He gets me out of the bed in the morning –  literally and figuratively! He breaks the ice when we interact with other people, and his positive outlook on life is infectious. I cannot imagine life without him.”

Niilo – Elina’s fourth assistance dog – was trained by Invalidiliitto, the only assistance dog program in Finland to be accredited by Assistance Dogs International (ADI). Being an ADI certified assistance dog means Niilo is trained to the highest standards to ensure he not only provides the best support but is safe and well behaved in public. 

“When Niilo and I are at the office, he sleeps under my desk and when I take a break, he gets the chance to greet my colleagues,” she explains. “Sometimes he even gets to play with my colleague’s guide dog! In the evening, we usually go for a long walk – there are lovely wheelchair-accessible woodland trails and riverside footpaths near where I live. Niilo doesn’t need a lead, he keeps close to me but he can sniff and explore freely. He loves to look for the perfect pine cone – that’s his favourite hobby. People often assume he is much younger because he is so playful and doesn’t act his age, he doesn’t even have any grey hairs!”

Much to the surprise of the people who live there, Finland regularly claims the title of the happiest country in the world. “Finnish happiness is probably the absence of unhappiness – in the grand scheme of things, life is mostly safe and uneventful here,” says Elina. “But we do have an appreciation for the little things that bring joy, such as having a great cup of coffee in the morning or hearing birds start singing again after a long, dark winter. Or in Niilo’s case, sniffing out the perfect pine cone!”