Fall Brings Hope
As the leaves fall our hopes are lifted. 1 FUR 1 Foundation is expanding it’s service area to cover Florida panhandle – where 4 therapy mini horses not only help seniors with disabilities but also touch the hearts of veterans. We’re thrilled to welcome, our newest partner Kindred Spirits Therapy Minis to the family. October […]
Amazing Animals: Meet Chips, A Life Changing Mini Horse
A Journey of Healing Sometimes, the biggest heroes are those who have, at some point needed a hero of their own. This goes for humans as well as animals; again and again, we see those who’ve lived through struggles coming out stronger and being able to help others. One shining example is Chips, a pony […]
Amazing Animals: Meet Dolan, Therapy Dog Extraordinaire
Gentle Giant and 1FUR1 Ambassador in Chicago If you looked at Dolan, a Great Dane who three years ago was emaciated, homeless, and hopeless, you would not have thought that he’d go on to do great things. But after being taken in by Just Giants rescue, getting adopted by loving new parents, and joining forces with […]
Amazing Animals: Meet Tori the Therapy Pony
How Tori the Therapy Pony Helped Ezra Find his Voice One day in mid 2016, a six-year-old named Ezra spoke for the first time. Defined as low functioning on the Autism spectrum, he’d never before been able to communicate verbally. He wasn’t able to say the words that help connect us: “Hello,” “Thank you,” “I […]
Animal Assisted Therapy Gets Wild
I know we often focus on dogs, cats, and the occasional goat when talking about animal assisted therapy and activities. For World Animal Day, however, we’re going to switch gears a little bit. We’ve briefly touched on the fact that wildlife helps with animal assisted therapy with the assistance of licensed therapists, but today we’re […]
Dogs with Birth Defects Do Amazing Things
Every dog is special. They all bring something to the table. Even when the odds are against them, they continue to be happy pups with lots of moxie. For Pet Birth Defect Day, I’m going to highlight three examples of amazing dogs who don’t let anything, especially not some pesky little birth defects, stop them. […]
Pet Therapy Brings Senior Citizens Closer to Others
We have discussed before the benefits of therapy animals for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, but in honor of Senior Citizen’s Day 2015, let’s delve deeper into the human-animal bond of senior citizens and therapy animals. Senior citizens suffer high rates of depression due to loneliness, from the passing of a spouse, lack of visits from […]
Gigi the Goat: A Brief Biography of Goat Assisted Therapy
Animal assisted therapy is not exclusive to dogs and cats. One little goat is making a big difference is many lives of Nebraska residents as one of the first goats involved in therapy. Three days a week, a 20 pound goat named Gigi, visits the residents of Gateway Senior Living Center in Lincoln, NE. Gigi […]
The Difference between Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) and Activities (AAA): Part 1 of 2
Here at 1 FUR 1, we support programs that help animals and people alike. Two terms we often use for these programs are animal-assisted therapy (AAT) and animal-assisted activities (AAA). Both have been shown to be very beneficial for animals and humans alike, but there is little information out there about the difference between the […]
Animals Helping Humans, Part 4: Wildlife
We have previously covered popular animals helping humans such as dogs, cats, and horses and the parts they play in animal assisted therapy and activity (AAT and AAA, respectively). Now we delve into more unconventional therapy animals: elephants, dolphins, parrots, and alpacas. Elephants are widely revered for their intelligence and friendliness, so they are popular […]