Thunder and Bolt are a pair of
miniature pig
Miniature Pigs, also called mini pig, or Pygmy pig, are small breeds of domestic pig, such as the Vietnamese Pot-Bellied pig, Göttingen minipig, Juliana pig, Choctaw hog, or Kunekune (and specimens derived by crossbreeding these breeds). Mini ...
s certified by the American Mini Pig Association as
therapy animals
A therapy or medical treatment (often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis.
As a rule, each therapy has indications and contraindications. There are many different ...
owned and trained by then 10-year-old Claire Barrow.
Thunder and Bolt made their therapy animal debut at
Tampa General Hospital
Tampa General Hospital (TGH) is a 1,041-bed non-profit, tertiary, research and academic medical center located on Davis Island in Tampa, Florida, servicing western Florida and the greater Tampa Bay region. TGH is one of the region's only univers ...
when they were 10 months old, where they celebrated their first birthday with patients from adult rehabilitation and children's medical center patients. Thunder and Bolt are the first therapy pigs at the hospital, where Claire is also their first youth volunteer.
The pigs, now 3 years old and approximately 75 lbs, are taken to various local nursing homes and hospitals to perform their therapy duties. They also made an appearance during a
Tampa Bay Lightning
The Tampa Bay Lightning (colloquially known as the Bolts) are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. They play th ...
hockey game.
The pigs have their own website and social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and YouTube channel, and have aired on
WTSP 10's ''Great Day Tampa'' and
Q105 and featured on ''
People
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
''.
See also
*
List of individual pigs
This is a list of notable pigs.
General
Arnold
Arnold was the Ziffels' pet pig on the TV sitcom ''Green Acres''. He would perform anthropomorphic activities such as coming uninvited into the Douglas home, turning on the television and watching ...
References
External links
*
Individual pigs
Animal-assisted therapy
Individual animals in the United States
2010s animal births
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