Another resident of the Lititz retirement community, Edith Longenecker, recalled her family also had horses and ponies, but they never rode them.

About a dozen residents -- some horse lovers and others a little more leery -- gathered outside one warm night last week to welcome a special visitor, a miniature horse named Trixie, the newest member in the Red Cross' animal-assisted therapy program.

"I'm excited," Clemens said. "I've never seen a miniature horse before."

As the residents got their first glimpse of Trixie, who at 27 inches tall is the size of a large dog, one exclaimed, "Oh, it's so cute!"

Becky Graham, who owns the 2-year-old horse, is used to such a reception.

"We joined the Red Cross in January," she said, "and everywhere we go we get this reaction."

Becky's 18-year-old daughter, Sarah, is Trixie's handler.

Sarah showed horses with the Palomino Horse Breeders Association for many years. She started riding horses when she was 6 years old and began showing them when she was 8.

Now that Sarah, a home-schooled senior, is ending her last year showing as a youth competitor, she decided she didn't want to continue.

Instead, Sarah wanted to do something to make other people happy.

She thought about working with therapy dogs, but because she loved horses so much she thought, "Why not get a horse?"

The quarter horses her family owned were too big to serve as therapy animals, however.

Then, last May, the Grahams found a registered American miniature horse in Lebanon that had just the right personality to be around many different people.

Sarah named the horse Trixie, which means "bringer of joy," something a therapy animal is bred and trained to do.

Becky figures her family's purchase of Trixie was meant to be because they later discovered her registered name is Graham's Picture of Beauty.

The Grahams then contacted American Red Cross of the Susquehanna Valley's animal-assisted therapy program.

"We have many dogs, cats and rabbits, but this is the first nontraditional pet," said Jeff O'Donnell, Red Cross' volunteer specialist for the Lancaster region. "Word traveled fast, and soon the office was buzzing with stories and pictures of Trixie."

To qualify as volunteers with the Red Cross program, the Grahams had to take a two-part training class. First they had to be oriented to the Red Cross volunteer program in general and then pass a training course given by instructor Kay Melchi, who is certified through Therapy Dogs Inc.

The Red Cross now has 70 active human/pet volunteer teams, O'Donnell said. They travel to 36 nursing-home sites in Lancaster County, as well as to Lancaster General and Lancaster Regional hospitals and the county Youth Intervention Center.

"The volunteers get as much out of the program as the people they visit," O'Donnell said. "They're happy to show off their pets."

There sometimes are other benefits for the animal handlers as well.

"I have social anxiety," Sarah said, "so this is therapy for me, too."

"This is great," said Bev Petersen, therapeutic recreation and volunteer director at Moravian Manor. "We're going to have to have (Trixie) back. We've had goats with a 4-H club come, dog shows. And the Red Cross regularly brings in dogs, rabbits and cats."

The animals, Petersen said, give the assisted-living residents "the opportunity to have their senses come alive. Touch and fondle is so important. There is an inherent need of touch and love and it being expressed back. So often when you are older, the feel of love and touch are limited."

The animals, she said, also bring back a lot of happy memories for the residents.

"It brings smiles to their faces," Petersen said. "Once you love animals, there's a bond, and you always feel it."

Petersen said pet therapy also can help people deal with the loss of their own pet, whether it has died or just become too hard to care for. Socializing with the animals without the responsibility of ownership is a "gift" to them, she said.

And, sometimes, she said, pet therapy can help break through some peoples' long-standing fear of animals.

This was illustrated when one nervous resident, Wilma Hedgecock, agreed to pet Trixie.

Lori Van Ingen's e-mail address is lvaningen@lnpnews.com.