CEO Loren Shook speaks to ADVANCE magazine about Silverado’s pet therapy program. Why include animals in your business model when it costs so much? Let Loren tell you…
Article excerpt from ADVANCE magazine:
By Heather Simons
Loren Shook grew up on the grounds of a psychiatric care facility owned and operated by his aunt and uncle in Seattle, Wash. When he was in college in the late 1960s, a young, catatonic woman, kept alive with tube feedings and unable to move or speak, arrived at the facility’s psychiatric ICU. “You could put her arm above her head and it would just stay there,” Shook says. “Nobody could get her out of that state.”
When the staff learned that the woman loved horses, Shook retrieved a calm, people-friendly horse named Heidi from the stable and brought her to the patient, who had been wheeled outside. “In less than 10 minutes, the woman stood up and started petting Heidi and talking to her,” Shook says. “It was incredible. She found a kindred spirit in the horse.”
The patient eventually regained full functionality, and Shook went on to make his newfound dream–to revive people with the most challenging behaviors with the help of animals–a reality. In 1997 he co-founded Silverado Senior Living, an assisted living provider that specializes in caring for people with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and other memory-impairing illnesses with a strong emphasis on the healing power of pets. From cats and dogs to guinea pigs and kangaroos, residents at Silverado Senior Living communities, located throughout California, Texas, Utah and Arizona, benefit from frequent interactions with animals….
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Click to read more about Silverado’s therapy Kangaroo at People Pets.com
