Thursday, August 14, 2008

Therapy Animals

Last year Billy came to Family Retreat. Billy is a black lab trained as a therapy dog. This means he has passed animal "good citizen" tests and is approved to visit hospitals, nursing homes, and other similar situations. 

We watched non-verbal kids who usually show little emotion meet Billy and open up their smiles to him. We saw children connect with each other with Billy as the catalyst.

Dogs aren't the only animals that can be trained as therapy animals, but this year we have with us something I've NEVER heard of--a pair of therapy llamas.

I've got pictures (of course), but it's late and the Internet is very slow for me tonight, so maybe later.

Thanks for praying for us here.

1 comment:

Corrie said...

Noel, there are also therapy horses - Courtney works with an organization called "we can ride" which uses horses for therapy for diaabled kids. You can ask her about it sometime.
Corrie