Discover the Best Animal Services with Life between the ears

We offer assisted therapy visits, which can be conducted either inside or outside. 

Our donkeys/ ponies wear specially-designed nappies, Pygmy Goats we just clean up after them and piglets are proudly toilet trained.

The new welfare laws apply to any animal being taken into a care home, regardless or not of whether they are ridden. To this end, we hold the required Animals for Exhibition license issued by Westmorland and Furness Council and are insured to the highest level as well as being DBS checked.

The benefits of bringing ‘the outside inside’ and of interacting with animals are huge. Stroking an animal has been proven to lower blood pressure. Seeing donkeys / ponies up close often brings back memories for residents of riding donkeys on the beach, or perhaps their farming days. We normally start off in a communal area and then head off around the bedrooms, so that any residents who are bed bound or reluctant to leave their rooms have the option of interacting with the donkey / ponies  too. We chat with each resident about their backgrounds, any animals they have owned and anything donkey/ pony-related, giving them a bit of one-to-one time as we go around.

Our assisted-therapy donkeys & ponies are incredible. They are selected based upon their natural temperaments and then enter a training process which sees them learn to handle working inside, being around wheelchairs, walking on different surfaces, using lifts and stairs, reversing out of bedrooms in tight spaces and standing quietly whilst surrounded by vulnerable people.

The job they do and the response they often get is incredibly emotional. Residents who don’t take part in other activities, people who rarely speak, those who don’t want much contact with the world outside of their bedroom, they have all been moved by our wonderful animals poking their heads around their doors!

We keep assisted therapy visits as cheap as we can.