By Noel Smith – [email protected]
Imagine an eight-year-old girl who is totally deaf. Damaged by a virus, she now faces life with her handicap. Physically, there is a large part of life experience that seems closed to her and often the world seems a distant place.
She is visiting the River’s Crest Dragon Slayers for the first time. One of the animals at this unique place where animals and children can bond in surprising and magical ways is a 2,000-pound Bactrian camel named Kubla. When the small girl and the full grown camel first meet, without any prompting Kubla lowers his head and gently nudges the girls deaf ear with his large but soft lips. The girl reaches up and her hand clasps the coat of the huge animal as they stand quietly together.
Whenever the girl visits Dragon Slayers, the two are inseparable walking the grounds as the little girl and the gigantic camel discover the world together. Her confidence in herself, the world and the people around her is being built through the friendship of this gentle giant.
This is what Dragon Slayers is all about, giving the physically challenged and emotionally damaged the comfort of bonding with animals and building their trust in a sometimes hard-to-understand world. Dragon Slayers is an animal therapy program for children and adults, using sometimes rare and unusual animals as a medium. Dragon Slayers has served this special community of the deaf, blind and paralyzed for almost 40 years by teaching self-confidence, awareness, gentleness and respect for animals.
The founder, 76-year-old Josef Rivers, is himself in a wheelchair, the victim of polio when he was only eight months old. As Josef tells it, “My father told me that everyone has a dragon in their life to slay. He told me, ‘You should help others to slay their dragon.’”
That is Rivers’ mission, to help others with the assistance of volunteers. The tools he uses are animals, living breathing creatures that somehow provide the feeling of self worth and well being to those who need these.
For over 40 years, Dragon Slayers located in Nisene Marks State Park, has been helping the physically challenged people to empower themselves with the help of exotic animals. Their partners in this adventure are Kublai Khan the camel, Voodoo the Watusi cow, Mazeltov the Poitou donkey, Samurai Warrior the Serama chicken, and many others.
“Frizzle Seramas,” according to Rivers, “Are the smallest breed of chickens in the world weighing less than a pound. The smaller the chicken, the better our students can handle them.” Rivers told us that working with birds helps the physically challenged with their motor movements. This is what River’s Crest Dragon Slayers suggest for your housebound chicken. Rivers said, “We guarantee you will learn a lot of chicken words because chickens love to talk and even sing beautifully.”
Dragon Slayers has many birds and mammals that their students can take care of. Students groom the donkeys and the miniature horses, which helps them with their shoulder mobility. With the yak and camel, they can spin the fur into wool to make yarn and for knitting sweaters. “I have three sweaters made from three different camels,” said Rivers.
Volunteers are the backbone of this organization. By volunteering with Dragon Slayers, you can learn about disabilities, work with unusual animals, and make new friends. And you’ll gain satisfaction from watching the students improve physically, mentally and emotionally.
River’s Crest Dragon Slayers is a nonprofit organization that needs donations to keep their corrals open. Give generously to help them continue to slay the dragons that all physically challenged people face in their lives. Caroline’s Nonprofit Thrift Shop in Aptos Donated $1,000 to Dragon Slayers out of the $120,000 in donations she provided for 12 different non-profit organization in the county. Josef Rivers brought some of his animals and volunteers to the shop to thank Caroline’s for their generous contribution.
Sizes go from one extreme to another at River’s Crest Dragon Slayers. In one enclosure, adult miniature donkeys and horses are mingling with a young mammoth donkey already towering the rest of the group. In the next enclosure, there’s the yak, and in the next, Indira Gandhi, one of the miniature adult Brahman cattle that could pass for a calf. Roaming around on the grass, next to a large collection of Bonsai trees, is a family of Sulcatas, which are a large North African tortoise.
“Working with animals, you come out of yourself, you are not isolated,” said Sharon, a student for the past 10 years, with Barcode, a Rock Plymouth chicken with black and white feathers on her lap. “Animals help bring your personality.”
What happens at River’s Crest Dragon Slayers stays in the heart and mind of the students. But what is sure, is that each and every student become more empowered and confident after the experience.
For more information: Contact Josef Rivers at 831-688-6699 or write to River’s Crest Dragon Slayers, PO Box 1051, Aptos, CA 95001 Website: http://josefriversdragonslayers.org/