Wild Meetings: Animals From Ramona-Based Sanctuary Crash Virtual Gatherings

It’s not your typical meeting when a goat or a pig crash your virtual gathering as a surprise, but that’s what one local animal sanctuary is doing to cheer people up as they work from home during these stressful times.

King Wolf Animal Sanctuary has so far brightened the days of nurses, classes, corporations, birthday parties, happy hours and more since it started its sweet service. The animals crash the meetings to surprise all attendants for a virtual gathering they’ll talk about for days to come.

“We have a lot of animals and we know they’re therapeutic and make people happy and smile,” said Lori DeProspo, who, along with her wife, Lauren Freiser, runs King Wolf Animal Sanctuary. “People are stressed and everyone’s worlds are kind of turned upside down so we wanted to offer what we had and make people’s days a little more exciting.”

View this post on Instagram

We are so excited to announce that we will be partnering with the Sweet Farm in Half Moon Bay, CA to assist in their many virtual programs! Today we hosted 3 Zoom birthday parties... all over the world! We were able to bring smiles to people in Belgium, London, and New York! Our animals made special appearances and brought about lots of laughter today. The pigs seemed to be the big hit! We will also be hosting virtual field trips starting next week, which is open to all public schools worldwide! Teachers have been setting up Zoom calls with us and their students will be able to meet all of the animals at the King Wolf Animal Sanctuary. We can’t wait to see the smiles on the little faces when they see our animals. We are so honored to be a part of these programs and are so grateful for the generous donations that we have been receiving from hosting these virtual experiences. Check out the website for the Sweet Farm and take a look at all of the fun virtual programs that they offer. www.sweetfarm.org Thank you Sweet Farm for giving us the opportunity to be a part of these amazing programs! 🐷🐮🐴🐎🐾🐐❤️ @thesweetfarm

A post shared by King Wolf Animal Sanctuary (@kingwolfanimalsanctuary) on Apr 17, 2020 at 4:29pm PDT

DeProspo and Freiser began booking their service after they saw a rescue in Half Moon Bay advertise their “Goat-2-Meet” program, in which animals surprised people by showing up on their screens during virtual meetings. The two reached out to the rescue about two weeks ago to see how they could help since the popular service was in high demand and overbooked. Since then, the local sanctuary began taking its own meetings.

“People love them,” DeProspo told NBC 7. “They’re laughing and smiling and I’m not really able to see them since I’m holding a phone, but I get to see their reactions later on social media.”

People from across the country have booked DeProspo and Freiser’s animals for their meetings and so far, the sanctuary has scheduled appearances through April.

“We know people are going through tough times and have stress,” DeProspo said. “It’s just great to see how much joy our animals bring to people to make their day a little happier.”

Based in Ramona, the 14-acre, family-run, non-profit sanctuary houses about 50 animals that include horses, donkeys, pigs, goats, a cow, an alpaca and a wolf/dog hybrid.

Before the pandemic triggered stay-at-home orders, King Wolf Animal Sanctuary hosted Airbnb experiences and other events to fund itself. Now that people have been ordered to stay home, the animal sanctuary accepts donations for the meetings in order to continue supporting its animals.

King Wolf Animal Sanctuary is accepting appointments to feature its animals in virtual meetings. To schedule an appointment, you can email them here.