Second Hand Ranch Helps Young Boy Cope with OCD

Video transcript -

Thor: Let's go.

Katie: My name is Katie Merwick and I am the founder and president, executive director of Second Chance Ranch.

Gina: Hi, I'm Gina Petri.

Greg: I'm Greg Cunningham.

Gina: And we're the parents of Thor.

Thor: Let's go.

Gina: And about three years ago, Thor was suddenly struck with Pandas, which is a condition that strikes just a small percentage of kids when they're exposed to strep, and they overproduce antibodies, and they wake up with severe OCD. And so Thor suddenly was struggling with a really bad case of OCD. And I think that the reason that we were drawn to reach out to Second Chance Ranch and the reason that we've been coming is that there's just something about being with these big gentle creatures.

Greg: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Gina: Don't you think?

Greg: No. It's, yeah, they have personalities all their own.

Gina: And fears.

Greg: Yeah.

Gina: And I think one of the things that's been meaningful for Thor who suddenly was struck with fears he'd never had, is to see these big creatures struggling with fears-

Greg: Their own fears, yeah.

Gina: And to have a role to play in helping them with theirs. And anything else you can think of?

Greg: Horses. They're horses. They're wonderful. They're just a lot of fun to be around and we bring treats every time we come. We try to bring treats and they enjoy that. So being able to interact with them in that way, it also just kind of pulls you out of your everyday I think is the thing that we enjoy coming out here to do. It gets you into a place that's... It's a beautiful place for starters, but it's also just completely different interacting with horses. And actually there's a couple of dogs here too that we just love to interact with. And so it's just a nice break from sort of the everyday as well.