James Middleton shares heartfelt post about his dogs helping him through loneliness

James Middleton has shared an Instagram post that's making us want to cuddle our dogs extra hard this evening.

James is a self-described "dog dad" to no fewer than five gorgeous puppers; Ella, Zulu, Inka, Luna and Mabel. Posting a photo of himself posing in the mountains with one of his dogs, he credited them with helping him through lonely times. "I've been in that angst of loneliness, where you're really alone in the universe," he wrote on Instagram. "Luckily for me I had my dogs." James, the younger brother of Kate and Pippa, has been open in the past about dealing with clinical depression. Writing in the Daily Mail in January, he admitted that he struggled to speak to those around him about how he was feeling. "I couldn’t communicate, even with those I loved best: my family and close friends. "Their anxious texts grew more insistent by the day, yet they went unanswered as I sank progressively deeper into a morass of despair." He was inspired to share his story by his sister and brothers-in-laws efforts to de-stigmatise mental health issues. "I feel compelled to talk about it openly because this is precisely what my brother-in-law Prince William, my sister Catherine and Prince Harry are advocating through their mental health charity Heads Together."