All abilities animal visits
Disability Support Worker, Janine White, says there’s no doubt about the power of spending time with animals. For two years, she has organised regular excursions to Henden Ryse’s farm program with participants from The Cottage, including Jan Lincoln, Ross Allan and David Knight.
Posted October 07, 2021
The farm program provides a safe environment for people of all abilities to spend time with animals and work on skills such as problem solving, patience, empathy and communication.
‘The participants have learned that how they act and move around animals can affect how the animals react,’ says Janine.
Ross is independent with the ponies. He likes to lead them through the obstacle course.
Meanwhile, Jan and David enjoy feeding the sheep and alpacas, and working with the goats. The goats are target trained, so Jan and David point to a target and say, ‘touch’, rewarding them with food when they do.
Jan has trained Marley the sheep to stand on a log in the mini agility/obstacle course.
‘David has learnt which brushes to use for different parts of the pony’s body,’ says Janine. ‘I told him once that with all the hair transferred from the pony to him that he looked like a pony and he laughed his head off!’
