Power of Animal Therapy

I believe in animal therapy.

I know how much a dog can brighten the worst day in my own life.

And this is an amazing story my friend told me about a man she knew who was a donkey owner:

This man took his pet miniature donkey to a nursing home regularly. He trusted the donkey because he knew it would never bite anyone with its calm temperament.

One day the donkey ran away from the man while he was at the nursing home. He was mortified; the donkey had never done anything like this before. He was frantically searching the building for the donkey.

And then he found the donkey down corridors and through a door into a room with an elderly man. The man was in tears, and the donkey owner thought the donkey had bitten him. But the donkey had its head resting on the elderly man’s lap and the man was just sobbing.

The man told the donkey owner that he’d been a donkey handler while overseas during a war. The man felt lonely and isolated in the nursing home ever since the war, but this donkey came to him and simply rested its head on the man’s lap and stayed there as if to comfort the man.

The man was given what he needed. He missed being with donkeys. He was comforted, and the donkey made him not feel alone anymore.

The donkey owner was gobsmacked. The donkey set off straight to this man’s room with such purpose and ran through corridors and different areas of the building to get to him.

I think it’s amazing. Animals amaze me. I know dogs can be very in tune with people’s feelings and know when people are sad.

I love animals so much, and this story just makes them love them more!