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Canadian Lab becomes autism service dog
By cuzzy | April 7, 2008
No it is not Bosco, he is way to hyper to do this kind of work. I bet he would be good at it if he was trained as a little boy.
Anyways this is a great story you should all give a read.
Boy’s best friend B.C.’s first autism service dog lends helping paw to Delta family
B.C. Guide Dog Services has trained it’s first autism services dog, and it’s making a huge difference for one Delta family.
Dave and Kim Harding’s five-year-old son, Maxwell, is autistic.
“He’s pretty well in the middle range,” said his father. “He has some speech and he’s cognitively aware of what’s going on but he does have communication issues.”
For two weeks now they’ve had Forest, a two-year-old Labrador retriever trained to physically and emotionally aid with the care of autistic children.
Prior to getting Forest, the Hardings had trouble taking Max shopping or somewhere where they needed to stop and look at something for a period of time. He would dart off in what he perceived as high stress situations.
“It could be something as simple as little changes that you or I wouldn’t really notice,” said Dave. “Or sometimes it’s a sound, he’s overly sensitive to sound. It could be a light bulb making a buzzing sound.”
Now, they can take Max to the grocery store and not worry about him running off, said his father. Max is connected to the dog by a belt around his waist, which ensures Max can’t dash into a busy street.
And when Max becomes stressed, his parents tell him to pet Forest and he calms down.
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Topics: Lab Related, dog news, info |
July 8th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I am a 65 yr old college student who is doing a research paper on “Why Labs are better service dogs for emotionally and physically challenged individuals.” When I came upon this website, I was elated that it was a Lab that is being used to calm a child with autism. That is the correct way to say it, and we need to remember that.
thanks for publishing this artcle, it will be added to my research paper, and will also share it with my Early Childhood Education class.
have a great day! Keep up the good work you all!
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