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Make KSTP Your Homepage  Updated: 04/13/2013 12:55 PM Created:
04/01/2013 4:03 PM KSTP.com | Print |  Email By: Beth McDonough
Mental Health Patients' Pets Find Homes in Carver Co.  Whether
it's anxiety, severe depression or worse. Chances are you know
someone with a mental health issue.  One in four of us struggle
with it any given year.  That's the word from the Department of
Health.  Yet some people who need long-term help refuse it in
Minnesota, because they don't want to abandon their pets. 
There's a first of it's kind program in the country, that
prevents that from happening.  It's in Carver County.  People
love their pets.  Especially Shawna Vivant, "we just connected."
Her feelings for 3-year-old Tess are so strong, "on my worst
day, I look at her and she's just a bundle of joy
and happiness," says Vivant, a mental health crisis worker.  She
started up a new program in Carver County, based on a foster-pet
system, "I understand the bond b