Scallop Shell Nursing Center residents Ellen Holley, left, and Gen Perasso greet scout Kristen Gershkoff and her friend’s dog.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

SOUTH KINGSTOWN Francis Pitcher, who will be 92 in November, liked the hermit crabs best. They had beady eyes at the end of antennae and live in shells painted to look like baseballs.

Pitcher, who lives in the Scallop Shell Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, watches out for his sister, Elaine Carpenter, who will be 93 in July. Both of them sat in the living room of the nursing center on Kingstown Road in Peace Dale last week as members of Narragansett Junior Girl Scout Troop 385 visited with their pets.

Curious noses stretched toward knobby fingers as Girl Scouts made their way down a receiving line of seated residents, introducing the family dog, rabbit, guinea pig or hermit crabs.

Genevieve Perasso watched the passing menagerie and remembered growing up on a farm, seventh in a family of 10.

“Oh, it was just marvelous,” she said, remembering the fields and gardens, the chickens and rabbits they kept.

“I’m an Italian,” she said. “My father was a good provider.”

He cooked rabbits in wine, she said, just like they did in the old country. She knows, because the rabbit she had on a trip to Italy tasted just like her father’s recipe. “He was a good cook.”

The visiting rabbit — a large, black 3-year-old bunny belonging to Olivia Scalora, 11 — may not have heard. Midnight was in the crate across the room, keeping an eye on the dogs and taking a minute to get over the flurry of social interaction.

ELLEN HOLLEY, whose wheelchair was parked next to Perasso, had her eye on Catherine Tierney, 11. Catherine was approaching with Cloe, a Yorkie-poo (that’s a cross between a Yorkshire terrier and a poodle).

“He’s yawning!” Holley exclaimed as Cloe curled her little pink tongue. Holley said her family always had hound dogs.

Resembling a hound, only shorter, was Hazel, an 8-year-old cross between a beagle and a Labrador retriever. She was being shown by Montoya Miller, 12, who goes to Chariho Middle School.

Rachel Sylvia, 11, had Douglas in a soft carrier that looked like a cross between a handbag and a rural mailbox. Douglas, with a beagle’s coloring and a cat’s curiosity, made a good case for guinea pigs as pets.

Lucille Malancack, who said her family always had red setters, spent most of her life in Massachusetts and Long Island, and lives at the Scallop Shell because she has a daughter in Wakefield. Her four granddaughters are grown now. She noted that the scouts were good with their animals.

Chooch got a lot of attention. He’s a puggle, a cross between a pug and a poodle, and he belongs to Jacqueline Griffith.

THE ARRIVAL of Brady the border collie began another round of greetings, first among the girls who ran to meet the latecomers outside, then between Brady and the dogs already in the room, and then as Brady sniffed the knees of residents and allowed himself to be petted. Brady, who joined the family of Maddie Loomis after a Patriots Super Bowl victory, was named for winning quarterback Tom Brady.

Word spread that Nemo, also a Yorkie-poo and a close relative of Cloe, was arriving. The two dogs seemed to recognize each other. Mackenzie Page, the Girl Scout belonging to Nemo, helped her mother decide how the dogs were related: they had the same mother and father but came from different litters. Mackenzie reminded her mother that she and her siblings had the same parents but didn’t come from the same litter.

MOST OF THE girls go to Narragansett Pier Middle School, where the troop meets. Perry Moylan, mother of Gigi and two hermit crabs disguised as baseballs, is the troop leader.

She said the girls started visiting Scallop Shell two years ago, when they were 9 and 10. Now they are 11 and 12, and have earned two badges related to their service project at Scallop Shell, the ones for Across Generations and My Community.

The girls are working on their Bronze Award, the highest a Junior Scout can achieve. For the bronze, they have visited every other month. They have worked alongside residents on crafts, such as making flower fairies, clay snowmen and pinecone bird feeders, Moylan said. In getting to know the residents, the girls have brought and shared ice cream sundaes, engaged in conversation, played trivia games and sung songs.

Moylan asked the residents if they’d like to sing. She started with a sure favorite: “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” which inspired some enthusiastic arm motions. Then Girl Scouts, little brothers, moms, caregivers and residents pulled off a three-way round of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” and then the pet project wound down.

dnaylor@projo.com