SHETLAND PONY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21216, 10 December 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

SHETLAND PONY

VISITOR TO HOSPITAL CHEERS UP PATIENTS If a horse doctor is a man who doctors horses, what name should be applied to a horse that doctors men? A little black Shetland pony called Patrick owned by Mr E. C. McDermott, of Hastings, is qualifying ( for the name of Dr Patrick, for it did a valuable stroke of work in cheering up the patients of Royston Hospital, Hastings, when it paid a visit to its master there, and also visited a number of other patients. Patrick was appearing at the Hawke’s Bay show and had been specially trained and groomed for the occasion, so that Mr McDermott, who has been a patient in the hospital for some time, wished to see him. Patrick made his appearance at the hospital, and amused the nurses and those patients who could see him from the windows by giving, a display in the yard. One small boy who was a patient could not see properly, and in order not to disappoint him, Patrick was taken into the hospital and trotted up the stairs and down the passage, quite unconcerned by the fact that he was making history in being the only horse to enter the institution.

After visits to several patients he entered Mr McDermott's room, and expressed his pleasure at the re-union by nuzzling his master as he lay in bed and patted him. Nurses at the hospital are of the opinion that Patrick’s visit was as powerful a cure to many patients as could have been devised.