Charlie Loves Visiting Seniors
Charlie's first visit was to a Franciscan Health System Care Center, an extended care home and it was filmed by Animal Planet.
Charlie has been visiting extended care facilities, nursing homes and hospitals since 2000, requests for a visit came after the patients discovered Chalie on Animal Planet. On the program they show Charlie visiting a nursing home and the patients discovered during the program that Charlie lived right here in the Seattle area where they were. They made a tape of Charlie's program and watched it several times so when it finally became time to visit there was quite a bit of anticipation and excitement. We were later told that many people that had memory problems, still remember Charlie after his visit for several weeks. I guess having a big wooly animal is something most people don't expect to see in extended care facilities.
Llamas are frequently used as therapy animals, Charlie loves visiting nursing homes. He has no problem moving comfortably around hospital beds, walkers, wheel chairs, narrow doors or sliding glass entry doors. (see photos below) Because llamas use a communal dung pile we have never had an accident when visiting. I guess you could say that Charlie is a naturally housebroken llama.
Charlie has the ideal temperament for being a therapy llama. He is calm and doesn't frighten or get easily excited. He seems to be very attracted to elderly people, especially the women.
Charlie learned how to walk on different surfaces in our house. When walking around inside our house he also learned how to move in and out of narrow places or rooms. Charlie never gets excited or uncomfortable and the elderly people just enjoy meeting him when he goes to visit the hospitals.