THE KISSING LLAMA
When therapy llamas Rojo and Smokey walk into an assisted living facility, a memory care center or a room full of kids with autism, everyone wants to pet them. “Kids hesitant to even be in the room with the llamas get comfortable enough to ask to hug and walk them,” says Shannon Joy of the Mtn Peaks Therapy Llamas and Alpacas in Woodland, Wash.
Joy tells of an elderly woman in a nursing home who hadn’t spoken in months. When Rojo nuzzled her, she laughed, touched him and said he was adorable. “The staff was teary-eyed,” she says. “It was the wrst time the woman had responded to anyone.” The llamas break down barriers in ways a human can’t for those who are withdrawn or mistrusting, she says.
Joy and her mother started Mtn Peaks 12 years ago (rojothellama.com). The llamas do two to three visits a week; four years ago, they did their 1000th visit. “I’ve lost count of how many places we’ve been to.” One of the highlights of a visit from the llamas: carrot kisses. A person puts a carrot in their mouth. A 400-pound llama takes it from them and touches their lips.
“It brings down the house,” Joy says. “It’s pure, genuine joy.”
Five-year-old Fatima Butler had been living with her family at the Ronald McDonald House in Gainesville, Fla., for two months while her big brother, Christopher, had a heart transplant and brain surgery. She needed a little pick-me-up—and she got it when in walked Mercury, a therapy horse who looks like a My Little Pony toy come to life. Fatima kissed the horse, and the horse nuzzled her back. Then her family FaceTimed her brother so he could see Mercury too. “He was smiling,” says Michael Butler, the children’s father. “It was nice to see him smile, after all he’s been through.”
Mercury is one of 21 trained therapy horses from Gentle Carousel, a nonprowt that sends the tiny equines to console around 25,000 people a year in hospitals, hospice programs and anywhere there’s been a trauma (gentlecarouseltherapyhorses.com).
Debbie Garcia-Bengochea, the group’s education director, tells of a girl dying from a heart ailment whose last wish was to have a tea party with horses. “We brought them in tuxedos and put sparkles in their manes and tails and told her it was fairy dust,” she says. “The little girl was over the moon. Sometimes you can’t wx things, but you can make someone smile and give them a happy day.”