Therapy snakes help special needs kids

A pair of Burmese pythons have found a new home and new, unlikely jobs as therapy animals on a farm outside Whitby.

Novas Ark in Brooklin, Ont. recently added the three-metrelong, 18-kilogram snakes to its menagerie, where they help special needs students learn about nature, themselves and each other.

There's no way you could replicate this in a classroom, said teacher June Cook of Uxbridge Secondary School, whose students recently paid a visit.

It would be impossible to learn from a book what we have covered with regard to social skills and just getting along together and the ability to function in society in general.

The snakes were both found in B.C., one on a golf course, the other in a campground. Unlike anacondas or rock pythons, Burmese pythons are very gentle.

For some students, some of whom were non-verbal before coming to the farm, the encounter brings out their personalities.

At first I was kind of nervous, but I kind of got over my fear laughs, said student Lorelei Adams.