Rockin' with the Ro-Dog

 "Dogs are very different from a lot of other animals...because they are hyper-social and  hypersensitive to everything we do.  Dogs are so tuned in to people that they are the only animals that can follow a person's gaze or pointing finger to figure out where a piece of food is hidden."
-from the book Animals Make Us Human, by Dr. Temple Grandin, Ph.D., autistic, author, lecturer, and advocate

The wonderful book, A Friend Like Henry: The Remarkable True Story of an Autistic Boy and the Dog that Unlocked His World lit an unquenchable fire under me for months.  The story of how a gentle Golden Retriever brought love, friendship, empathy, insight, and joy to the life of Dale Gardner, a Scottish boy with severe autism, and his loving, but physically and emotionally spent, parents, was one of those "aha!" moments that launched me on a new mission with laser-like focus.  With two cats and a chinchilla already sharing our household, and very little interest in any of them on Aaron's part, it had always amazed me when he interacted with a dog.  Silent, aloof Aaron would suddenly light up, approach it, pet it, talk to it. "Hi, there, big guy," he once greeted a huge Great Dane, with a hug.  Wow.

While Aaron's academic intelligence is on par with, and in some ways superior to, his age-group peers, without a typically-developing sibling to model appropriate social skills, and with a decided unwillingness on Aaron's part to interact with peers unless forced to, outside of school there has been very little opportunity to practice and develop "appropriate" social behavior that "neurotypical" children learn instinctively.  I despaired that he would ever learn to understand the subtle cues of body language, personal space, eye contact, voice level, appropriate topics of conversation, and other important skills.  One of my deepest fears for Aaron's future is that he might spend his life without ever experiencing the joy and comfort of a true friendship.    The solution, it seemed to me, was suddenly very simple.  We needed to get a dog.

But the problem was finding the right dog.  The more I researched, the more discouraged I became.  Not every breed of dog has the right temperament or the right set of inbred characteristics to be a successful one-on-one companion for an autistic child.  This could not be any ordinary family pet.  Much as it pained me, the likelihood that just driving over to the local animal shelter and letting Aaron pick out any one of scores of wonderful, lovable dogs would lead to a successful pairing was becoming increasingly remote.

Organizations that provide service dogs to autistic kids were all too happy to provide one for Aaron -- for anywhere between $8,000 to $30,000.  Um...nope.  Not unless we could find a sponsor and were willing to wait for 4-5 years.

Just as I arrived at the point of putting my dog-search efforts on "indefinite back-burner" status, my mother-in-law, Rita, told my husband, Michael, about a small organization she had just read about called The Hairy Angel Foundation, located near her home in Sedona, Arizona.  The Hairy Angel Foundation breeds, trains and places Golden Retriever service dogs with autistic children, at no cost to their families (although donations are accepted).  The Foundation has no website and no organized publicity program, relying strictly on word-of-mouth.  Rita gave us an e-mail address and a phone number...and a little under two years and lots of correspondence later, at the beginning of October, 2009, we traveled to Sedona to meet, train with, and take home...Romeo the Wonder Dog:: 

Hi!  You talkin' about me?

 I would love to say that bonding between Aaron and Romeo was obvious and immediate, and that there were huge changes in Aaron as soon as we got home.  Really, I would...but I would be lying.  Or wishful thinking.  It was clear that Aaron was very pleased with his new dog, but Romeo is big, even for a Golden Retriever, and at only a little over one year old, a very...spirited boy.  Aaron was intimidated and overwhelmed those first months and gave Romeo a wide berth -- sometimes even avoiding him altogether.  Mike and I talked late at night about our disappointment that Romeo's arrival, in spite of the added love and laughter he had brought to our home, hadn't turned out to be the miracle we had hoped for.

Little by little, though, Aaron's reticence with Romeo has faded.  After 18 months of having Romeo with us, the obvious affection between the two of them is palpable.  Aaron pets and plays with him, talks to him, hugs him, feeds him, refers to him as "my best friend" and "my four-legged brother;" and even expresses concern about about Romeo's health and comfort.  Sometimes they lie down quietly together, facing each other side by side, Aaron with his arm across Romeo's torso, and just bask in each other's company.

True friends, indeed.

Romeo (front) with his litter-mate and fellow service dog, Dulce, who was placed with another boy that we referred to Hairy Angels.