ABC's of Autism - D

I've talked about Anthony's dog, but I'm going to talk about it again, I am so hopeful about it.  Sometimes I think - he is doing so well with the PECS and now the iPad and the program he's using for speech with that, the toilet training has gone well, if slowly, he sleeps pretty well, could it be that we could get a dog and it would help with a lot of other problems?  Could that happen for us, could we have that much good luck?  Of course, the insurance companies of America are around to remind us that we have some bad luck too, so I guess it will all balance out as usual.  I pray every day, several times a day, that we get that dog.

We have filled out an application and it has been accepted by ICAN, the Indiana Canine Assistance Network.  We could wait for two years, or it could be as soon as late fall.  Once we have a dog assigned to us, or chosen for us, we would have to go to two weeks of training at the Indiana Women's Prison - Mike and I and Anthony would go, I guess, although I don't know about that, I'm not sure what we'd do with the other kids.  There's no point in worrying about it until it happens, I guess.  Anyway, that is the general rundown of how it would go.

Meanwhile, we wait.  Anthony is doing really well, as I said, with PECS and his iPad and his general work at Little Star.  We are just plugging away as usual, but sometimes I look on YouTube for good videos about service dogs and autism and I found this one the other day, it's a great story.  I know there is a girl at Anthony's school who has a service dog, she and her family got it through a national program, lord lord it's way more expensive than it would be through ICAN, like TEN TIMES as much. But it seems to be working out really great for her and I'm grateful that she has a dog who is there, it's nice for Anthony to be exposed to a dog and for everyone at his therapy center to be familiar with the concept.

Also, I have friends who have kids with autism who are helped from their regular old dogs, and that is an option too.  I think you can also go places to have your dog trained to help.  There are a lot of options, for us. I think the only option is NOT doing something.