France's popular special doctor. He's a horse

At the Calais Hospital in France, there was a special doctor. Everyone calls it Doctor Peyo. It's a horse. On weekdays, it shuttles through the palliative care wards and children's departments of hospitals, providing the final reassurance to patients in the countdown to life.

Marion, 24, has a metastatic malignant tumor and is lying in a hospital bed holding her 7-year-old son. Peyo walks over and gently strokes them with her nose. Peyo stood by and watched Marion tenderly while the medical staff was relieving her of the great pain caused by cancer.

Roger, 64, who came to the hospice for a blood transfusion, said: 'It's nice to meet my favorite doctor.' "He can sleep well tonight," his wife said. "Every time he sees Peyo, he sleeps like a baby."

Peyo, 15, is owned by Hassen, who started as a synchronized rodeo partner. On stage, Peyo is full of energy, and on grass, he likes to run like any other horse.

But once he's in the hospital, he'll calm down. Once inside the hospital, Peyo is not told where to go. It decides which ward it wants to go to and which patients it wants to see. He would walk around the ward, decide to enter a ward and suddenly stop, or raise his horse's hooves. To the amazement of doctors and nurses alike, Peyo seemed to sense who had cancer and who had tumors. The patients it picks are always the sickest and most in need of comfort.

On one occasion, it insisted on entering a young man's ward. Once inside, Peyo's owners learned that the young man had terminal cancer and time was running out. He has trouble communicating. He barely speaks. But when Peyo went in and looked at each other for a while, he started crying...

The medical staff said Peyo seemed to have magic. Patients who would normally be angry and aggressive would calm down, and patients who didn't want to walk would slowly get up. Even normally silent patients, in front of it will suddenly jump out a word. Some patients even need much lower doses of painkillers because of it.

It brings joy to the sick child and comfort to the dying.

He made a lot of friends at the hospital, Raymond being one of them.

Raymond had never had much to do with horses in his life, but at the end of his life, he met Peyo. Rather, Peyo chose him. She walked up to his bed, put her head close to his face, looked at him, and brought him peace.

After meeting Raymond for the first time, Peyo went to a rodeo. Ten days later, Peyo returned to the hospital and made a beeline for Raymond's room.

In the last days of his life, Raymond wanted to go home, and Peyo followed his stretcher to the ambulance. But it doesn't seem to understand what that means. After the ambulance was taken away, it returned to the Raymond ward, empty. So it returned to the parking lot, also empty. He went to Raymond's room again and tried several times before finally confirming that his friend had left. Later, Raymond's family invited Peyo to their home to accompany Raymond on the final journey.

Peyo is like a guardian angel in the eyes of many patients' families, and some even invite him to their patients' funerals.

Daniel, 67, is an old friend of Peyo's and is always happy when his family mentions Peyo to him. When Daniel died, his family invited Peyo to join the funeral procession. Stayed with him to the grave.

Hassen said he noticed Peyo was different from other horses during his previous rodeo shows. He loves contact with people, especially the weak. After performing, Peyo would often walk up to someone who was physically or mentally weak and stand there, calmly letting them touch her.

As a therapy horse, Hassen cleaned and disinfected him before and after each visit to the hospital to ensure hygiene. Before the trip to the hospital, Hassen had to coat his body in antibacterial solution, braid his mane and tail, brush his hooves with oil and cover him with a blanket. Peyo waits patiently for everything.

Since 2016, it has accompanied more than 1,000 dying patients until their last breath.