(CNN) Squeals of delight echo around the room at Vanderbilt's Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. Nine-year-old cancer survivor Bryce Greenwell turns to his mother, Jenny. "Did you know about this?" he asks, hands cupped to his face in surprise. "Yes," she says with a nod, smiling from ear to ear. "Oh, my gosh, he has missed you guys so much!" pet therapist Michelle Thompson says as she hands Swoosh, her trained toy Pomeranian, over to two eager boys. "Did you miss him? He talks to me about you boys all the time." "I haven't seen him in a long time," says 7-year-old Mitchell Montalbano, who recently graduated from chemotherapy treatment, cancer-free. "Swoosh, what have you been up to?"Two boys who were treated for cancer treasured their time with therapy dog SwooshA new study looked at the impact of therapy dogs on children and their parents
"But when he saw _, his anxiety level went down without the use of medicine. "When Bryce saw _ today, after not seeing him for about two years, it really warmed my heart," she says, tearing up. "It was after those first few visits with _ that he would say, 'OK, you know, I'm not going to die. Kristy adds incredulously, "and he would say, 'Mommy, when do we get to go back to the hospital so I can play with _?'. He wanted to go get chemo so he could play with _." A statistically significant reduction in parental stress was one of the key findings of the randomized clinical trial, _'s Gilmer says. "I think everyone should have a chance with _," Bryce says. Nothing in words can describe how good it felt to see _ again."