Pet Therapy

Iota McHippus and The Lady (Marti McGinnis) have registered themselves as an official “Pet Partner” team for Paws for Friendship. Not the biggest pet partner registry but one with whom we found a strange affection for via some Facebook connections! Let her tell it:

Update:

I thought we were going to go Delat Society all the way – but then the fall got busy and I never got around to putting the final touches on our registration forms. Literally all I had to do was buy some “White Out” and make some minor adjustments to written answers on their paperwork and I simply never ‘got around to it’. Why? I think it was because around this time iota was making some friends on Facebook who are already therapy minis and started bonding that way.

Before you knew it Christmas was here and I got to take a trip to Florida where Paws for Friendship team Scooby Boo and Robin Bidwell met me at my Mother in Law’s assisted living center. That was it – instant love – and short story short – I have filed our paperwork with them instead!

The way I figure – being a part of an organization with the world “friendship” in its name is a better fit for us than one with “society”, lol.

Finding the Right Mini

“Three years ago I went out and located the perfect miniature horse to work with to become a registered “Pet Partner” team with the Delta Society. I went to select from several month old minis and ended up being selected by a two week old newborn. How I knew I was being chosen was after playing with the older foals the breeder invited me to look in on her newbie. This ultra cute weensy chestnut and white foal left his little gray mother and walked directly up to the fence where I was standing and looked me in the eye.

Now you horse lovers will know this is strange behavior for such a young foal. They don’t usually leave their mothers so freely nor do they tend to look people in the eye. As I had stated my intentions clearly to come up with the perfect mini to accompany me through the Delta Society training I knew who my partner was as soon as he identified himself in this way! Plus I was smitten. Well, here see for yourself how cute the little bugger was.

The young lad at 2 weeks

He was way too young to come home with me so I put a cash deposit down on him and drove away with the promise of getting progress reports from the breeder in the ensuing months up until he would be ready to be weaned.

The Delta Society

In the meantime I started looking further into what the training would entail for becoming a registered “pet partner” team with the Delta Society. They are an organization that has identified the clear benefits of the presence of animals in what are usually stressful places, especially medical facilities. If you have ever been in a hospital and saw a dog with a handler ‘making the rounds’ visiting patients and their families then you have probably seen or met a Pet Partner team.

Usually Dogs

Our Official Logo

I should mention that usually these Pet Partner teams are with a dog, but I had caught wind of their also being Pet Partner llamas, cats, birds, bunnies and perhaps even a miniature horse or two elsewhere in the United States. Being that I like near Lexington, Kentucky a city that proclaims itself to be the “Horse Capitol of the World” I figured someone better form a Pet Partner team with a horse. Who better than me? Besides I had done some advanced level trainings with EAGALA (Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Organization) and was well aware of the therapeutic inroads being made with human/equine interactions. I felt uniquely drawn to and qualified for putting this team together.

I have waited patiently for the little guy to grow. He did and we’ve worked hard for him to learn enough about basic obedience behavior in social settings to pass the fairly rigorous Delta Society evaluation test in Louisville in 2011.