Therapy animals delight clients at UCP-Center for Disability Services in Joliet

It’s hard to say who at United Cerebral Palsy-Center for Disability Services in Joliet enjoyed the therapy animals from Ready Set Ride in Plainfield more: the students, the clients or the staff as they watched the responses.

Anastasia Tuskey, spokeswoman for United Cerebral Palsy-Center for Disability Services, said one child, who’s “pretty immobile,” actually reached out to pet a pony.

“That’s the first time she’s ever done something like that,” Tuskey said. “Animals are just fantastic. They totally elicit emotions and feelings that people can’t … and you know, there is nothing better than seeing a smile on anyone interacting with the animals.”

Ready Set Ride provides “therapeutic equine recreational activities to special needs or terminally ill individuals regardless of race or religion,” according to its website.

Certified therapeutic riding instructors guide the students and therapy includes “physical, speech, occupational, developmental and recreational therapy,” the website said.

“We currently have more than 50 riders each week who come to enjoy an hour of horseback riding,” Lisa Afshari, Ready Set Ride founder said in a news release from UCP. “We are able to accommodate almost any special accommodation for riding.”

Afshari, along with two volunteers, came out to UCP with three gentle horses, two Shetland ponies and a senior horse and two chickens, Tuskey said.

Approximately 30 clients and students came out to the grassy area near the school to touch and pet the animals and feed the horses romaine lettuce, Tuskey said.

“I don’t know what kind of chickens they were, but they had the softest feathers I ever felt,” Tuskey said. “And they were so docile.”

Therapy animals can significantly reduce anxiety, depression and fatigue and pain, according to Mayo Clinic.

Tuskey said she’d met Afshari at a ribbon-cutting on Route 59 and was amazed at her program, which includes some therapy animals, too.

So naturally Tuskey considered the benefits of Ready Set Ride bringing therapy animals to United Cerebral Palsy-Center for Disability Services. Perhaps some families might want to learn more about therapeutic riding, too, Tuskey reasoned.

“My wheels were just spinning,” Tuskey said.

Part of the “therapy” of the event for the UCP students and clients was “letting our kids and clients feel normal,” Tuskey said.

“They do stuff like this in the schools,” Tuskey said. “So why can’t our kids and clients have the same opportunities?”

For information, visit ucp-cds.org and readysetride.org.