BOISE, ID (KTVB) – Saint Alphonsus Hospital in Boise, Idaho had an unlikely four-legged visitor recently.

Standing at 32 and 1/2 inches tall and weighing only 150 pounds, Domi, a therapy mini horse, has a big job.

“We come to the hospital to visit with patients and family members and staff, pretty much anyone who just needs to have a few minutes to smile and kind of forget about what’s going on in their life right now,” says pet therapy handler Brian Hohstadt.

Arthur Turner is a patient at Saint Alphonsus and he says it’s not every day you see something like this.

“How many would say they’ve been in a hospital with a horse?” said Turner. “Anytime you see something unusual it’s a happy situation. You can’t make nothing bad out of that at all. It was inviting to me.”

Hohstadt says his true calling is visiting patients.

“I get their life and I can hear the stories about their childhood, about their family  and their childhood,” he said. “All of those stories. That to me defines that individual so to me it’s everything. To me volunteering is just kind of my whole existence, I hope it’s my entire legacy, it has changed my life.”

Hohstadt started volunteering years ago with a therapy dog. He says his background with horses helped him think of a unique way to help the patients.

“I used to ride horses, I grew up around horses, let’s try a miniature horse,” he said. “I knew they would let you train them so I got her and started working with her and she passed on the first time with a perfect score.”