From the author: Bugaeva, E.I. The use of pet therapy in working with people in early adulthood / E.I. Bugaeva // Collection of works 68th scientific. conf. stud. and graduate students of BSU, May 16-19, 2011, Minsk. At 3 p.m. Part 3 / Belarusian. state univ. – Minsk: Publishing house. BSU Center, 2011. – pp. 10-12. Pet therapy is a therapy in which the psychotherapeutic agent is the interaction of a person with a pet. From the English pet is a generalized name for domestic animals, literally “favorite”, “darling”, “favorite animal”. Such an animal can be a cat, dog, aquarium fish, parrot, canary, rabbit, chinchilla, hamster, pet rat, lizard or anything else. The only thing is that it is important that the animal is of interest to the owner himself, and also corresponds to the temperament and lifestyle of the owner of a particular animal. Keeping animals at home has long been used by humans, as they say, “for the soul,” i.e. for emotional communication, satisfying the need for affection, the desire to provide care, often for the purpose of optimizing and stimulating the development of children in the family. Urbanization and technologization of modern society contribute to the fact that people strive to compensate for the lack of contact with nature by keeping animals at home [1]. Pet therapy has found widespread use in Western countries, where a large number of diverse studies are conducted with the participation of pet owners. In the USA there is an international organization for animal therapy (Pet Therapy International). Pet therapy does not yet have a single generally accepted terminology. Sandra B. Barker and Kathryn S. Dawson from the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia studied the effect of therapy dogs on the anxiety levels of hospitalized psychiatric patients. The 1998 study involved 230 people with a wide range of diagnoses, including depression, multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia. Almost everyone showed a significant reduction in anxiety levels thanks to animals. The exception was people with severe degrees of dependence - the author believes this may be due to withdrawal symptoms [2]. Various studies have concluded that the presence and contact with pets lowers people's blood pressure. Watching aquarium fish also lowers blood pressure even more than sitting quietly and staring at a wall. And the most startling findings may be that spending time with pets can help someone who has suffered a heart attack live longer. Pets may also help protect the cardiovascular system.[3] Our study aimed to identify differences in the emotional and functional states of pet owners and people who do not own pets. The study sample consisted of 60 people (30 people who have pets and 30 people who do not have pets), of which 37 were female, 23 were male. The average age of the subjects is 26 years, the age of the youngest subject is 18 years, the oldest is 35 years. All subjects belong to the middle class in terms of social status. Education – not lower than secondary specialized education. Among the subjects were students, undergraduates, graduate students and university teachers, high school teachers, individual entrepreneurs, women on maternity leave, as well as middle and senior level workers. Among pet owners, 18 had a cat, 9 had a dog, and 3 subjects owned both a cat and a dog. The breeds of domestic animals are very diverse: from purebred to titled (CAC, CACIB). Among the cat owners were Siamese, British, Russian Blue, Persian and others. Among the dog owners were such breeds as pug, German and Central Asian shepherd, Labrador retriever, Rottweiler, Yorkshire terrier and others. All. 5-9.