Miniature touch therapy horses work as ambassadors at the National Western Stock Show
HunnyB, the miniature touch-therapy horse and ambassador for the National Western Stock Show, stood patiently outside the Stock Show merch store, waiting to bring joy and peace to anyone and everyone.
Her owner, Audra McNicholas, sat close by to tell visitors about touch therapy and her horses. Her daughters Avalynn, 8, and Arlilia, 10, and their cousins Mabel Fitzgerald, 9, and Ivy Fitzgerald, 7, stand beside HunnyB.
They were beaming.
Audra McNicholas is a trustee for the National Western Stock Show. Her husband, Sean, is owner of SSA Group that has catered Stock Show food and beverages for the past 50 years, as well as the NWSS gift shop.
She started raising and training miniature therapy horses in 2019 and today has two horses that are fully trained. Another one is in training at her facility in Greenwood Village.
“They are specifically trained for touch therapy,” said McNicholas in an interview with The Denver Gazette. “They’ve done a lot of medical research and came to the findings that the simple act of petting an animal — whether it’s a dog or a horse — releases all the same endorphins into your brain that you get when you eat chocolate or you laugh or you drink, or you get a hug from somebody that you love.”
“It’s just a powerful tool to help people feel joy and feel happy and give them that endorphin drop,” she said.
She said they visit schools, nursing homes, hospitals and community special events, such as the Denver Nuggets games.
“St. Anthony’s (hospital) is the one that we go to most often, but we’ve been to Littleton Adventist, we’ve been down to St. Joe’s,” McNicholas said. “We regularly partner with a place called Lighthouse Living Facilities. They have seven of those facilities here in the Denver metro area. We visit each house once a month, or once every other month, depending on weather and what they have going on.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, McNicholas said they visited St. Anthony’s three or four times just to help the staff cope with the stress. They went to the Colorado Veterans’ Home to visit servicemembers who are permanent residents there. The horses are also part of the mounted unit of the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office and wear their own badges.
“We just do a wide range of things throughout the community, a lot of mental health stuff, a lot of encouraging kids and seeing our elderly friends,” she added.
McNicholas and her family love farm animals, especially horses. She said giving back to the community is important year-round — not just at Christmastime or Thanksgiving.
“As trainers and handlers, we get so much joy out of it, bringing joy to others. Everything ranges from people just being so excited that they start to laugh, bringing out emotional things sometimes in our friends and they just cry with tears of happiness or tears of remembering their childhood,” McNicholas said. “The emotions range all over the board, but I can tell you that wherever they’re at on the board, they definitely stem from just the joy that comes from seeing them and touching them and getting to experience the wonderful love that a miniature horse and the calmness and the joy.”
While under the Americans with Disabilities Act miniature horses can be authorized service animals, hers are touch-therapy animals and not specifically trained to perform some tasks as required for service animals.
The ADA says that only dogs and miniature horses can fall under the authority of the law to be permitted anywhere a member of the public can go. That includes airliners, restaurants, stores and public buildings.
“The ADA has no requirement for service animals to be ‘certified.’ Service animal certificates provide the individual with a disability no more rights than an individual without one. And, while there are several online registries, including official looking ones, there is no need or requirement to register,” the ADA National Network’s website says. “The ADA National Network provides information, guidance, and training on how to implement the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
For more information on the ADA, visit the ADA Infoline. To contact McNicholas Miniatures, visit the website at www.McNicholasMiniatures.com.
HunnyB, a miniature touch-therapy horse and ambassador for the National Western Stock Show stands patiently outside the NWSS store with her owner, Audra McNicholas, and her daughters (right to left) Arlilia, 10, and Avalynn, 8, and their cousins Ivy Fitzgerald, 7 and Mabel Fitzgerald, 9, on Jan. 10, 2024, in Denver.