What is goat therapy and does it help with stress?

I like my therapist a lot, but she doesn’t nibble on my sleeve, or smell like cedar chips, or stick her little pointy horns into my arm, which – no offense – really diminishes her ability to make me feel good instantly. Sure, she’s brilliant and supportive and leaves me with clarity, but clarity can hurt. sometimes that’s all you want feel better immediately, Instead of, you know, Happen Better with time. So when I found a farm near me that offered therapy with goats ($50/hour), I immediately booked a session – failing to realize that you have to BYO the therapist and thus sit and discuss your life with a pile of baby goats, a process that actually strikes a balance between improving your life both in the short and long term. Now!. I wasn’t a BYO doctor, but I did meet goats.

Of course, you don’t need to do goat therapy. blue sky farm. You can also do goat life coaching, or goat yoga, or goat parties, or you can invent your own goat-friendly event and the farm’s owner, Alain Beaulieu, will almost certainly be involved. She’s a warm, smiling woman in her early 50s, with long silver hair, bulging arms and an unsettling ability to stare into your soul as if she’s already your oldest friend. Ellen met me on the way to her farm and led me through a barn with its doors wide open, sunlight shining almost in a halo off her little donkey, Jack. “I used to drive past fields and think, Oh my God, I wish someone would let me sit there,” she said, driving me to a flowing waterfall and pond, where a frog glistened on a rock. But working in the fields is busy and dangerous, so when they bought Blue Sky in 2013, their goal was to make it look like people want To make it look like a farm—and then invite them inside.

The goat place is, as it were, an airy room at the side of the barn, with blue and white walls and a floor strewn with fragrant hay—which at this time was filled with 10,000 three-week-old kids, who swarmed around our feet as we walked inside. (Actually, there were only seven of them, a fact I know because Ellen told me, and not because they slowed down enough for me to count.) We sat down together on a bench and the kids immediately began climbing into our laps, jostling for space and pressing our chins. Even when clients don’t come specifically for therapy, Ellen tells me, “They still walk away from here and say, ‘Wow, this is very therapeutic.’ This is no accident.”

“How do you make it therapeutic?” I asked

She didn’t listen to me, and anyway, there was too much to do – the goats piled into my lap, soft and slightly dusty, surprisingly warm, and they seemed to melt into my chest when I wrapped my forearms around them. They had small pointed faces, their lips gnawing impossibly fast. His ears were covered with small white spots. A cream colored baby was licking my nose again and again, its tongue the size of a fingertip.

“Which one reminds you of you?” Ellen asked.

I looked around. A brown baby was skipping across my crossed legs and almost into my lap before sliding sideways again and again. I picked him up with one palm and he sat on my thighs. I related to that, but it took a moment to figure out why. “This one,” I said, “because he doesn’t mind falling. I guess I’m the same way. I get to do nice things in life because I’m not so afraid of falling.”

As soon as I said this, Ellen’s eyes lit up and I saw what she had done. Ask anyone about themselves, and they’ll tell you something they already know. But by seeing the goats, feeling the connection, and putting words to it, they get a chance to learn something new.

Ellen herself is related to a little boy named Chia—”He’s an equalizer,” she says; “He helps everyone get along.” Their visitors are mostly women – not only therapists and their clients, but also friend groups, a skydiving club, mothers and daughters of all ages. The next day, Ellen came in and saw the adult sisters lying on their stomachs and laughing loudly. They were not even rearing goats; Just being with him was enough. Blue Sky’s yoga classes sell out fast – 25-person sessions draw clients from as far away as Iowa and Indiana. (Ellen started classes a decade ago, expecting the trend to be short-lived, but this will be her ninth consecutive summer.) Goat yoga isn’t just a gimmick, she explained to me: Goats are a means to yoga’s end, and vice versa. People who are self-aware of their bodies feel freer, more present, because everyone’s attention is on the goats, not them. As for the goats, they are prey animals, and can become nervous when too many people approach them (“They say, I’m not sure why you want me so bad!”) but when visitors are doing yoga, the goats feel comfortable approaching them.

Ellen’s ultimate goal for the farm is to turn it into a sober living home for women, who will help care for the animals. The idea came from his personal experience of helping a friend get sober. He explained, “I checked myself into 13 rehab centers over 10 years and realized how broken the system really is. After 30 days in rehab, you can start to look past your addiction, but that’s when the hard work begins.” A residential home will provide long-term support – as well as, you know, entertainment with the goats. (Her friend, who occasionally lived on the farm, has been sober for several years now.)

I was looking forward to my own therapy that weekend; There was something I wanted to bring out that had been holding my heart for days. But now, it seemed much easier to just sit there and wait. I tightened my arms around a brown and white goat, kissed its wiggling ears, smelled its goatee. Next to me, Ellen did the same with Chia, who had completely melted into her chest. “People don’t always need to talk about their problems,” she said softly, bowing her head, as if telling a secret to the lonely goat. “Sometimes, they just need space to breathe.”