On a recent Monday afternoon, Joie Henney walked into the Glatfelter Community Center at the Village at Sprenkle Drive, an assisted-living development north of York, with his emotional support animal on a leash.

He walked by an elderly woman sitting on a bench by a window, reading a book. The woman glanced up from her book, took a look at Joie's emotional support animal, shrugged and went back to her book.

Which seemed kind of unusual. Joie's emotional support animal is a 4.5-foot alligator. There must be some currency to the adage that if you live long enough, you'll see everything.

Ty Lohr / AP In this Jan. 14, 2019, photo Joie Henney, of Strinestown, lifts his emotional support animal, Wally, up on a table to give a presentation at the SpiriTrust Lutheran Village at Sprenkle Drive in York, Pa. (Ty Lohr/York Daily Record via AP) In this Jan. 14, 2019, photo Joie Henney, of Strinestown, lifts his emotional support animal, Wally, up on a table to give a presentation at the SpiriTrust Lutheran Village at Sprenkle Drive in York, Pa. (Ty Lohr/York Daily Record via AP) (Ty Lohr / AP)

Joie paused in the hallway while residents and staff gathered in a semi-circle, an air of curiosity mixed with the terror of seeing a huge reptile, its sharp teeth visible inside its powerful jaws, and kept their distance.

Joie said it was all right. Wally — that's the gator's name — wouldn't hurt them. He's a pretty mellow reptile, and he likes people in the companionship way, not the potential food way.

One woman approached, cautiously, to have her picture taken with Wally. “I'm not scared of snakes,” she said, “but that thing has a lot of teeth.”

Joie encouraged her to pet Wally. He particularly likes the top of his head rubbed. When you do that, his eyes close, much like a dog's when you pat the top of his head.

He seems very nice, the woman said.

Joie responded that Wally was. He's about three years old and, Joie says, “He's just like a dog. He wants to be loved and petted.”

That is if your dog had leathery skin and mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth.

Journey began on family farm

Joie Henney's journey to becoming the owner of an emotional support alligator began on his family's farm in northern York County, just outside Dover.

The family raised Yorkshire hogs.

Joie and a friend were goofing around on the farm when they decided it might be fun to ride one of the breeding stock, a female that had grown to be a good 800 or 900 pounds, a fairly substantial hog.

It was fun for a while.

But then his father caught them and chastised them for it, noting that hogs weren't meant to be ridden.

It became worse because the hog in question was pregnant, and the stress of being ridden was too great for its apparently sensitive constitution. The hog died. And Joie was in deep trouble.

Joie's father suggested that if he wanted to ride animals, he should try riding a steer.

So he took Joie to the rodeo in Wellsville, in a field next to the fire hall, so he could get a taste of what it was like to be atop an animal that didn't want to be ridden and would do anything it took to make it stop. His father figured it would teach him a lesson.

It did.

He tried it.

He liked it.

He was about 10 years old.

The rush of hanging on for dear life as a half-ton of muscle, bone and bad attitude thrashed underneath him was addictive. “I guess I learned the wrong lesson,” he said. “I'm an adrenaline junkie.”

It was that addiction that led him to reptiles.

He had a friend who had a Gaboon viper, one of the most poisonous snakes on the planet, 4.5 feet of menace topped with 2-inch-long fangs that can inject massive quantities of lethal venom.

He got the snake out of its aquarium and handled it, asking his friend whether he had any anti-venom on hand, just in case. His friend didn't. “We were going to die if we got bit,” he said.

He's had snakes and other reptiles. “I'm not a dog person. I had venomous snakes. I rode bulls,” he said. “I like the calm things in life.”

He had a hunting and fishing show, “Joie Henney's Outdoors,” that ran from 1989 until 2000 on ESPN Outdoors, Fox and other outlets.

He knew a few people who had alligators and, as he says, “I was always fond of them,” as if the attraction were the same as one would have with, say, a cat.

He has a friend who rescues gators in Florida, and about three years ago September, his friend called him up and asked, “Do you want a gator?”

There were a bunch of alligators — called a congregation — on a plot of land that was about to be developed. The initial plan called for the gators to be relocated to a habitat uninfested by condos. The plan changed and then included the eradication of the congregation.

Joie's friend didn't cotton to the notion of the gator elimination and offered to rescue them and find them new homes.

So in September 2015, Wally came to live with Joie at his home in Strinestown, York County.

He was just a pup, about 14 months old, as near as they could tell, just a small guy, maybe a foot and a half long, barely a yearling.

At first, Wally was afraid of everything. It was, Joie said, as if you just got a new dog or cat. He snapped at everything and was, well, a wild animal trying to adjust from living in what had been a swamp to living in a house.

Ty Lohr / AP In this Jan. 14, 2019, photo Ron Snyder, 88, and Holly Armstrong, the life enrichment community director, hold Wally, a 4-foot-long emotional support alligator, at the SpiriTrust Lutheran Village at Sprenkle Drive in York, Pa. (Ty Lohr/York Daily Record via AP) In this Jan. 14, 2019, photo Ron Snyder, 88, and Holly Armstrong, the life enrichment community director, hold Wally, a 4-foot-long emotional support alligator, at the SpiriTrust Lutheran Village at Sprenkle Drive in York, Pa. (Ty Lohr/York Daily Record via AP) (Ty Lohr / AP)

“Everything has a bad attitude at first,” Joie said.

First, he had to feed him with tongs; otherwise, giving him a snack of some raw chicken could result in the loss of digits, or worse.

He picked Wally up when he could and comforted him when he was scared. It took some time, but after a few months, Wally had begun to become domesticated. “He was a like a little puppy dog,” Joie said. “He would follow us around the house.”

He had some territorial instincts. He cleared out one of the kitchen cupboards and established that as his domain. “He still thinks that cupboard belongs to him,” Joie said.

After a while, Wally became as domesticated as he would ever become. He is still a wild animal, Joie said, emphasizing that you still have to be careful around him.

But he became a part of the household. He liked lying on the bed or the couch. (He can't stand a made bed and has to ruffle the blankets and sheets to make a nest, sort of like a dog.)

He was just like having a dog, save the notion that, at any given moment, he could bite your thumb off.

Wally has the run of the house. He and Joie's other gator, Scrappy, a 2-year-old, reside in a 300-gallon pond he build in his living room.

Wally loves to watch TV, his favorite shows being “Gator Guys” and “Swamp Boys,” resting his head on the edge of the living-room pond to watch the screen. His favorite film is “The Lion King.” When that movie is on, Wally watches it through to the end.

. Before he knew it, Wally was 4.5 feet long, a pretty good-sized reptile. (He could eventually top out at 15 feet or so. Gators, like all reptiles, grow the entire span of their lives, which for a gator, could be 55 to 80 years.)

Joie takes Wally around to schools and senior centers, putting on programs about gators and educating people about them and the pressure on their habitats from development and other human activity.