Langreck: Have you hugged your cow today?

To say the COVID-19 pandemic turned everyone’s worlds upside down would be an understatement. Personally, from having my children doing school from home and my youngest not being able to go anywhere for months due to a compromised immune system, my world was a bit topsy-turvy for several months.

With the guided instructions from the state health department, luckily my world isn’t quite as crazy as it was a year ago, although one day a week my kids still have school at home so their school can do a weekly deep cleaning.

I know that considering everything that has been going on in the country and the world, I’m lucky that I was able to spend most of the shut-down with my family.

Even though at times I literally wanted to pull my hair out from being stuck — I mean surrounded by my family — I know I was lucky that they were there to help me get through it. I know tons of people had to face the pandemic alone, and I can’t even imagine what that must have been like.

During the time at home, my son, Graham, would always joke about how two of his particular sheep, Emmy and Penny, could be used as therapy sheep to help comfort people — although, I don’t think he was joking because whenever he got overwhelmed he would go out to the barn and spend time in the pen with his two buddies.

Usually, he would come back in with a smile on his face and talk again about how Emmy and Penny should be considered therapy animals so he could take them with him wherever he went. Up until recently, I always laughed whenever he said that and told him he was silly.

However, I was on the phone with my sister the other day when she told me that Graham was onto something with using Emmy and Penny to make others happy.

Apparently, there our farms out there that are offering people who miss companionship and hugging others the opportunity to come out into a field and hug and hang out with cows.

While it may seem strange to me since I grew up on a farm and have been acquainted with livestock for several years, if hugging an animal helps people cope with hard times and being alone, then I am all for it.