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THE HEALING POWER OF HORSES

- Luc Rinaldi

FRANCE In many hospitals across the world, therapy dogs are used to comfort the sick. The Calais Hospital in northern France has a more unusual helper: Peyo, a 15-year-old chestnut stallion who had been a professional dressage horse.

According to his trainer, Hassen Bouchakour, Peyo has always gravitated to people with physical or mental illnesses. “It’s visceral,” Bouchakour says. “He needs to go and cling on to the specific person he has chosen.”

In 2016, after Bouchakour retired Peyo from dressage, he started bringing him to the hospital—they now visit twice a month. Peyo clops from room to room visiting patients, many of whom find it comforting to pet him and have him watch over them. Children ride through the hospital’s halls on his back, and Peyo stays with palliative patients right until the end—one man even requested that the animal attend his funeral. The therapeutic effects are anything but horseplay: doctors report that patients in Peyo’s company often require fewer pain medications and have reduced stress.

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