Therapy Llamas Are Coming to Take All Your Troubles Away

When it comes to comfort and rehabilitation, llamas aren’t the first animals I think of. Warm puppies, soft bunnies, and spitting llamas? Well, apparently I was several shades of wrong because therapy llamas are here, they’re awesome, they’re wonderful, so don’t fuck with them. Or they’ll spit on you.

The Delta Society, a non-profit organization that licenses all pets for therapy, says around 10,000 are currently registered for care work in the U.S. Yes, the vast majority of dogs — but there are some cats, horses, and llamas in there. Well, only 14 are llamas, but still. That’s 14 more than you thought, right?

Therapy llamas are no joke, they can really change lives:

[A] social worker named David Lee at the Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Ohio was one of the first to experiment with animals and therapy.

In 1975 he presented his patients with small pets as gifts.

The results were undeniable – fighting amongst inmates reduced significantly and suicide attempts ceased.