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SFO gets piggy with it: Meet the airport's newest therapy animal
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Dec 8, 2016
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SFO gets piggy with it: Meet the airport's newest therapy animal
Traveling can be stressful, especially during the holidays. San Francisco airport's WAG brigade has therapy animals to help. Meet their newest member: LiLou the pig!
LiLou the pig in her WAG brigade vest and tutu.
LiLou the pig in her WAG brigade vest and tutu.
(
Via SF LiLou instagram
)

Traveling can be stressful, especially during the holidays. San Francisco airport's WAG brigade has therapy animals to help. Meet their newest member: LiLou the pig!

You heard it here first. Pigs DO fly.

Well, not exactly, but there is one little piggie making travel a little more pleasurable for passengers at San Francisco international airport. Her name is LiLou and she's a part of SFO's WAG brigade.

A Martinez spoke to Jennifer Henley about LiLou and the SFO program. She's the Animal Assisted Therapy manager with the San Franciso Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"The WAG brigade is a partnership, between the San Francisco SPCA and San Francisco international airport," Henley told Martinez, "Where we take dogs and now one pig into the airport to provide stress relief for passengers."

The WAG brigade was formed in 2013 when SFO reached out to the San Francisco SPCA and tapped their animal assisted therapy program.

"Travel is stressful, as I think all of us can appreciate," said Henley,  "And the goal is to provide some enjoyment for passengers. Sometimes passengers are nervous about travel, so to kind of comfort them, alleviate that stress and just to provide a more enjoyable travel experience for the people coming through SFO."

And just in time for all that stressful holiday travel, LiLou the pig has made her debut on the WAG brigade. But as is evident from her many costumes and painted hooves, she's no ordinary pig.

"She has a toy piano that she can play, she does twirls, she waves to passengers," said Henley of LiLou's many tricks, "She can jump up, she bows and she knows when you say 'photo' to look at the camera."

For more on the WAG brigade and its newest recruit, click the blue play button above.

Can't get enough LiLou? You can see more of her costumes and adventures on her Instagram.

This post has been updated.