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Are you interested in owning a pet dog? Then your toddler is probably in good health as compared to other young children, with no pets around them. According to a latest research, having a pet dog can actually shrink the risks of asthma by 15 percent.

Not only that, but another significant development in the theory suggests that early contact with farm animals is even more efficacious as it lowers down the risks of asthma by 52 percent.

A bit of a loose cannon, but the theory further verifies the "hygiene hypothesis" which maintains that being exposed to impeccable conditions in initial infancy can make you more prone to certain allergic conditions later on in life.

Scientists included one million children from the year of 2001 to 2010 in Sweden and concluded that early acquaintance to farm animals can cut down the risks of asthma by 52 percent.

Daily Mail quotes 'Earlier studies have shown that growing up on a farm reduces a child's risk of asthma to about half,' said lead scientist Dr Tove Fall, from Uppsala University, Sweden. 'We wanted to see if this relationship also was true also for children growing up with dogs in their homes. 'Our results confirmed the farming effect, and we also saw that children who grew up with dogs had about 15 per cent less asthma than children without dogs. 'Because we had access to such a large and detailed data set, we could account for confounding factors such as asthma in parents, area of residence and socio-economic status.'

Professor Catarina Almqvist Malmr the co-author of the study claimed that the associations proved to be certain, but did not further elaborate or justify why and how animals can cut down the risks of asthma in children. The results were analyzed due to the efficient population data base system of Sweden as the culture of pet ownership and contact with farm animals has resulted in jaw-dropping results particularly for the parents.