San Francisco San Francisco SFO

Lilou SFO Therapy Pig a rising star

a pig wearing a hat and a leash

Three days ago I read in the San Jose Mercury News about Lilou meeting travelers in San Francisco Airport. Lilou, a Juliana breed small pig, is the first therapy pig to graduate in spring 2016 from the San Francisco SPCA Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) training program. The SPCA link is an AAT newsletter featuring Lilou’s background and what a pig is like as a pet. Juliana pigs are the smallest breed, but still 50 to 70 pounds and a different breed from pot-bellied pigs.

Over the past few days Lilou’s story spread across media from left-leaning to right-leaning sources. Lilou looks to be a rising star in a country needing some major therapy assistance.

Lilou’s Instagram page lilou_sfpig is closing in on 5,000 followers today.

lilou_sfpig instagram page

On Twitter there are images of Lilou found within a variety of hashtags #therapypig, #wagbrigade and she is the most prevalent image on the @flySFO page these past few days.

Lilou FlySFO GMA tweet

NBC SF Bay Area posted a 30-second video of Lilou with her companion Tatyana Danilova.

Lilou and Tatyana join 300 other dog, cat and rabbit teams trained by the San Francisco SPCA in animal assisted therapy for service around the San Francisco Bay Area community.

Airports are probably the places I see more people cry than any other public space I frequent.  The ‘wag brigade’ seems like a good social service endeavor.

SFGate.com – SFO Adds Therapy Pig to Greet Travelers (Dec 5, 2016).

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