Albion College’s campus is known for its squirrels. Appearing on t-shirts, masks, signs and social media platforms, the squirrel is a symbol of the college. In addition to the squirrel, the college is introducing a new animal to its grounds: Goats.
Clancy and Duff are Albion College’s two new therapy goats. For the first part of their lives, Clancy and Duff lived on a goat yoga farm not far from campus. However, as goats grow older and bigger, they become less suited for goat yoga. As a result, Albion College faculty decided campus would be the perfect place for them.
“Dr. O’Neill did goat yoga there and asked if we could consider them for comfort animals when they outgrew yoga,” said Albion College President Mathew Johnson, via email. “At about the same time, Jason [Raddatz] brought to me an idea for using goats in the Nature Center, so I bought them and donated them to the college.”
Comfort animals are not a new concept on campus. Kai, Kolt, Stevie Wonderful and Sunny all serve as therapy dogs. However, the implementation of therapy goats is something that has never been done here before.
Clancy and Duff are currently housed at the Equestrian Center due to the city of Albion’s no-livestock ordinance. However, President Johnson has a room closer to campus set up for the goats in hopes of being granted a variance.
“Clancy and Duff miss regular human contact now that winter has set in,” said President Johnson. “We very much would like for them to be housed much closer to students for this reason.”
Assuming the variance is passed, the goats will reside at 501 East Michigan Avenue, which is only a short walk or drive from campus’s residential buildings.
Leave a Reply