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Pegasus slowly trots out of an elevator, surrounded by docs and nurses. He is able to make his rounds and see the numerous sick youngsters hospitalized at Holtz Kids’s Hospital, situated on Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Miami campus.
His proprietor, Alexandra Ramos, would not must say a lot to introduce the miniature horse to his first affected person. The boy’s eyes mild up the second Pegasus walks into the room.
“He’s never seen a horse in person before, so I’m glad to see him smile, honestly,” Nigeria Harris stated as she watched her 9-year-old son, Kumari, pet Pegasus. He was ready to be discharged after an bronchial asthma assault on his first day of fourth grade led him to remain in a single day on the youngsters’s hospital.
Holtz and different South Florida hospitals have lengthy used remedy canines to supply sufferers with emotional assist, both by hiring handlers to herald the furry companions or by having their very own in-house remedy canines to make extra frequent rounds.
Now, hospitals have begun to discover the identical philosophy, however with horses. In South Florida, Pegasus has already made rounds at Mount Sinai Medical Middle in Miami Seashore, HCA Mercy Hospital in Miami and Nicklaus Kids’s Hospital close to South Miami.
“No one wants to be in a hospital. No one wants to be sick, and anything that could take their mind away from what they’re doing here, I think it’s a really positive thing,” stated Gino Santorio, president and CEO of Mount Sinai Medical Middle in Miami Seashore.
Pegasus first visited Mount Sinai’s hospital in 2024 for Valentine’s Day as a part of Mount Sinai’s pet remedy program.
“You could tell that people’s attention was immediately drawn to [Pegasus], and for the 10 to 15 minutes that the mini horse was there, that’s all anybody was really thinking about,” Santorio stated. “Sometimes that 15 minutes of just mindfulness gives people a mental reset.”
Pegasus, like his six adopted remedy canine siblings, is skilled to provide emotional assist to children and grownup sufferers present process difficult therapies.
And Pegasus comes dressed to impress. For his first go to to Holtz Kids’s Hospital, he arrived in character as Woody the cowboy to match the hospital’s “Toy Story” theme—little cowboy hat and slip-resistant mini boots included.
The horse’s magic repeats itself in each room—brilliant eyes, smiles, awe and shock. Some children put stickers on his physique.
It is not simple to plan a go to. Hospitals need to comply with strict pointers to make sure cleanliness and scale back danger of infections and sickness for sufferers, employees and guests. An worker that stayed near Ramos and Pegasus throughout his current Holtz go to, for instance, carefully monitored the interactions, ensuring the youngsters cleaned their arms correctly and, at occasions, modified robes following their interactions with the horse.
These are simply a few of the steps the hospital took to ensure Pegasus might go to all of its sufferers, together with these in outpatient, oncology, the transplant institute and the pediatric ICU as a part of Holtz’s “Feel Good Friday” initiative, the place employees discover enjoyable actions for sufferers, employees and households to do to provide children a psychological break.
“The opportunity to pet, the opportunity to cuddle with a horse, is another level … and gives them that opportunity to take a break if they’re going through pain,” stated Kim Juanico, Holtz’s nurse coordinator for the pediatric palliative care workforce. Her workforce focuses on discovering methods to enhance high quality of life for youths with severe or life-limiting diseases.
“It may not be the medication that helps them, but Pegasus can come in here and give a gentle hug to a kid and let them cuddle and pet, and their pain level goes down.”
“It’s a distraction technique,” she added. “Days are long and hard here. We’re constantly waiting for the next hour to come. This passes a little bit of that time.”
Advantages of equine remedy
Horses are additionally getting used to assist scale back nervousness, promote calmness and develop higher emotional regulation in youngsters outdoors of the physician’s workplace, too.
At Equine Music Remedy Assets close to West Kendall, horses and music are being utilized in remedy to assist youngsters with nervousness, despair, autism, and different behavioral and neurological problems be taught life expertise and achieve confidence whereas serving to them navigate their feelings, in response to Dayne Leon, the corporate’s president and founder.
Leon stated equine remedy works due to how intuitive, virtually empath-like, horses are to individuals’s feelings. Some analysis signifies horses cannot solely hear the heartbeat of these round them however can even synchronize the beat of their hearts with their riders, she stated. Leon says that connection can usually assist promote calmness.
“Kids feel in control of that huge animal, but at the same time, it’s building a bond between the animal and the person that is extremely magical,” stated Leon, tearing up as she talked in regards to the adjustments she has seen within the youngsters her group helps.
“When you see a child that is isolated in their own world and they open up to a new one, they open up to the best version of themselves,” she stated.
It is just like what remedy canines do.
The furry companions “help bridge the gap that we, even as clinicians or specialists, can’t get through to the child,” stated Talia Mor, a toddler life specialist at Holtz and the handler of Mahi, the kids’s hospital’s facility canine. “You see them start to really talk to you and engage with you when they wouldn’t have been as open to do that before.”
For Ramos, who has labored for over a decade with remedy canines, equine remedy is a brand new approach to carry that consolation to sufferers and different youngsters.
From remedy canines to a remedy horse
Ramos, who grew up with horses and different cattle in Colombia, labored years in the past with Amigos Close to, a Miami-based nonprofit basis that helps underserved youngsters the world over, together with children in orphanages throughout Haiti, Colombia, Spain and the Dominican Republic. Ramos stated she was on the bottom shortly after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, serving to to ship meals and different important objects to households in want.
As a part of her basis work, Ramos would typically go to Nicklaus Kids’s, then generally known as Miami Kids’s. Someday, she went along with her canine Bruno. Somebody on the hospital really useful she carry her pup again to work together with sufferers. Ramos recollects feeling confused by the ask, however nonetheless did so.
That second modified Ramos’ life. She now handles six remedy canines—Ares, Thor, Odin, Apollo, Zeus and Bruno—along with Pegasus. He’ll quickly have one other brother: Arion, one other horse she’s within the technique of bringing into the fold. All are rescues named after characters from Greek mythology.
“I don’t have children, but I believe there’s a need to make many kids feel better who lack many things at home,” Ramos stated.
Pegasus, to her, is sort of a massive canine. On the farm the place he lives in Kendall’s horse nation, he is playful and even a bit mischievous, not all the time listening to Ramos, pulling on his reigns, impatient to be set unfastened to go run in his paddock. He likes to roll on his again, a method horses use to scratch and groom themselves.
However on the hospital, Pegasus is poised. Calm. A gentle presence for anybody who wants him.
“He transforms when he’s with patients,” stated Ramos.
Not each canine or horse could be a remedy animal. Remedy canines, and horses like Pegasus which might be tapped to do equine remedy, need to bear coaching to ensure they will work together safely with sufferers in unusual and loud environments.
And, like different small enterprise house owners in Miami, Ramos is navigating rising prices—she spends hundreds to feed and take care of Pegasus alone—and complicated immigration regulation adjustments. She lately met with an immigration legal professional to debate the standing of Pegasus’ coach, who’s a core member of her workforce.
The coach, who was born in Nicaragua, spent a lot of his life coaching horses for reveals and competitions throughout Central America. He moved to the U.S. final yr beneath the humanitarian parole program to work as a coach at a ranch in southern Miami-Dade. That is the place he met Ramos, who he says has modified his life.
However his standing could also be in danger now. It worries Ramos, who considers him not solely a good friend but in addition her right-hand man.
The coach visits Pegasus day by day and is just like the horse’s shadow throughout hospital visits, maintaining a detailed eye to make sure the protection of Pegasus and people round him. He is so in tune with Pegasus, he can inform what the horse wants simply by taking a look at him—meals, relaxation, even a toilet break, a useful ability for these days when Pegasus is trotting by means of a hospital.
For now, the coach plans to maneuver into the ranch that Ramos and her husband lately purchased in Broward County to have Pegasus close by. That is the place Ramos additionally plans to kick off her one-on-one equine remedy classes.
How stress impacts horses
Ramos’ workforce additionally consists of Esteban Suarez, who’s Pegasus’ private masseuse.
Horses get careworn, similar to people do. Muscle tissue get tensed and strained. Locked muscle mass can result in harm if not handled correctly.
Suarez’s job is to provide Pegasus structural integration remedy—consider it like a deep tissue therapeutic massage. He rigorously goes over each inch of Pegasus’ physique, from his neck to his again and all the way in which to his hooves.
Stress impacts everybody’s physique in a different way. Some individuals could really feel that their stress piles up as stress in a sure space of their physique, akin to their neck, shoulders or toes. That is true for Pegasus, too. His stress appears to have an effect on his shoulders and again essentially the most, and it appears extra noticeable after a protracted work day, in response to Suarez.
Standing inside trailers in Miami’s gridlocked site visitors is a traumatic expertise for horses, in response to Suarez, who runs an equine structural integration remedy and rehabilitation enterprise referred to as Equi-Belief. The sights, sounds and smells inside a bustling hospital may also be overwhelming, even for a skilled horse.
Pegasus will get the therapeutic massage about as soon as a month, much less usually than aggressive sport horses. Pegasus additionally has the work-life steadiness many individuals dream of. Ramos will not let him work greater than as soon as per week to make sure he will get correct relaxation.
Throughout their current go to to Holtz, Ramos stood proper behind Pegasus, serving as a gentle protect. Ramos stated she does it to assist direct Pegasus by means of the hospital, but in addition to provide him peace of thoughts that nothing will shock him from behind. She made certain he acquired a toilet break and inspired him to satisfy Mahi, Holtz’s remedy canine.
The 2 bumped into one another within the hallway and briefly touched noses, cementing the beginning of what is going to possible be a brand new friendship between horse and canine.
Inside a close-by room was 15-year-old Eric Ortiz, who was on the point of depart after staying in a single day for an ear an infection. He did not have a hospital horse sighting on his 2025 bingo card.
“I can win Two Truths and a Lie now,” he stated.
2025 Miami Herald. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company, LLC.
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