All of us with dogs do it. How we do it and why can make significant changes to you and your dog’s mental health… In today’s busy world we are losing opportunities to slow our pace, take a moment, be in the moment and deepen your bond with your dog. Dog walks can be a powerful tool to relax, destress and restore harmony.

Mental health matters not just to humans to dogs too. And I would like to point out assistance/service dogs need time out to let go after working. In fact, it is essential for them to have time out. Take off the harnesses, the work gear. I see many wearing a lot of paraphernalia. Go outdoors together for some freedom time.

Rescue dogs too can find new homes, new families/lives stressful. They need time to be themselves. There is so much pressure on dogs and people.

Switching that pressure off and a reconnection with nature is free, available at any time and just waiting for you to open the door to a new way of walking. All dogs deserve time to be just dogs.

This way of walking allows just this.

​Dog walking, we can take this to a whole new level of understanding and learning together. Observation is important. Start there, with where you go.

Where is your favourite walk? where is the dogs? Is it the same or different?

Do you try new places? Do you notice what happens if you change where you go? My dogs love new places! They cannot wait to bury their noses deep into the new information smells.

How much do you notice on a walk? Or are you on the phone? Always in a hurry to get the walk finished because you have other things to do. We can miss out on such magical moments and also what is necessary, needed by dogs.

Enrichment for dogs on walks. What is this? and how do you do this?

Letting your dog do what dogs should be doing for a start. They need to relax, destress, and breathe deeply, it is so important for their mental health. What we want and expect for our dogs is often not what they need.

They need to have the freedom, and the loose lead (or off lead, you should know if you can let them off) to sniff, explore and investigate their environment.

They want to be able to explore the multitude and multiple scents, stick their noses right in, inhaling these rich sources of information! a variety of surfaces, walk on soft grass, crisp crunchy leaves, velvet soft moss, get wet in puddles, rivers, streams, mooch around in mud.

They hear sounds, animals, birds, everyday sounds and far more than we are aware of, have a relaxing roll-on leaves or grass, sit, stand, stare… all senses activated. Senses in use! smelling, hearing, touching, feeling and being dogs.

All senses being in use is the ultimate grounding, mindfulness exercise. Join in! start listening, touch a leaf, or some grass, a stone. Listen to the birds, sounds around you, breathe in fresh air. It is amazing to see them, how they are naturally and to share this time together. Silence from a busy world and embracing stillness unites us.

​You can learn a lot and deepen your bond. It is enriching, relaxing for you too. A wonderful deep meditation and release of stress. Issues, problems forgotten, released, our mental well-being will be restored to rejuvenated and anxieties calmed. The ability to cope with life strengthened for both of you in these moments. Remember as people suffer with anxiety, dogs suffer too. We both need time to relax and reset ourselves. Or we stay overloaded and less able to cope with our daily lives because it is simply too full of what does not serve us well, or stress and heavy energy. Let go. Learn to enjoy a walk together. Feel lighter and happier. Emptying/releasing the heavy energy means new lighter ways can enter. Happiness, joy, and inner peace are three of my favourites.

Listen to your dog more, listen to nature. When we are open to listening, being in the moment, it creates a sense of well-being. You and your dog will benefit hugely from walking with no purpose and just being at one with nature and each other.

#dogwalking #mentalhealthmatters #autism #outdoors #takeyourtime #slowdown #enjoy #smile

A beautiful account of pets and autism. Not everyone can cope with an assistance dog. It is a complicated process involving a lot of time and hard work. Many have pets who do a wonderful job of enriching lives and assisting unofficially as much loved family members. Alison Skillin is well known in the assistance dog world. This is her story and personal experience.

Tess Eagle Swan.

I have worked in the UK assistance dog community for seven years now. I know a lot of adults who were not diagnosed as children and have lived in solitude within walls of confusion for their whole lives. Many have found the support they need in an assistance dog but just as many find it in indoor pets.

Sometimes animals bonded to a human can pick up on their distress and do their best to help it. Even a pet bird can nuzzle their owner. It’s so empowering to see that all kinds of animals can give this kind of support to an ASD sufferer.

Watching my son Jason blossom into a confident teenager has been a wonder.

He has struggled with high functioning ASD for his whole life. There are two things that made the difference for him. First, he bonded with a kitten we adopted and secondly I found the right secondary school for him.

Souxie came to us from an accidental litter. She became fast friends with Jason from the start. If he was having a meltdown or about to she came running to him. She cuddles into his lap and watches TV under his chin.

She’s a bit aloof with everyone else. She helped Jason through tough times in Primary and continues to give him support now.

Jason likes that Souxie, spends special time in private with him.  He takes the peace she gives him into public with him.

Kratu is my assistance dog. I am what’s called an owner trainer. I found the whole assistance dog world very hard to navigate, it was confusing and unhelpful in places too. One experience was very hurtful.

Here is some information from people I know, who are excellent at what they do, and whom I trust to provide accurate, up to date and most of all the right information for anyone who would like to look into getting a dog to become an assistance dog, training one, or just researching before making any kind of commitment.

It is a commitment, it is hard work. The end result for me was Kratu and his support, help gave me so much more freedom. He was the catalyst for a huge life change for me.

We did things that I never dreamt were possible. There will be ongoing articles about autism, dogs, how important they are to families, autistic people, children and introductions to understanding them a lot better.

Communication is so important to get it right as I know from often getting it so wrong! 

Learning how to communicate with a dog, their body language, when they are stressed, scared, nervous, happy, excited and how to respond is the key to a healthy balanced relationship with them.

Diet, nutrition, exercise and a lot more to come. Doing the best I can for my best friend is the least I can do, I set out to learn, research and educate myself, and I did.

I am happy to share with others, the key to canine communication, caring for the canines that in turn help us navigate life in an often difficult, strange and sometimes scary world.

The following information is a great place to start and will help inform and guide you to making the best decisions if you decide to go ahead and welcome a dog that will become an assistance dog into your family.

The following information has been shared by Hilary Armour, Chief Executive at Dogs for Autism:

There are four ways of getting an autism assistance dog

1. Apply to a charity who will supply you with a fully trained dog

• The pros are that the charity cover most if not all of the cost, professional trainers will train your dog, there will be aftercare support for life.
• The cons are that the dog always remains the property of the charity officially, it can be very difficult to get on the list for a charity dog and there can be a long wait (often a number of years). Only Dogs for Autism supplies dogs to people over the age of 10.

The charities who train Autism Assistance Dogs are Dogs for Good, Support Dogs, Dogs for Autism and Helpful Hounds

2. Buy a fully trained autism assistance dog from a ‘not for profit’ organisation who will provide you with a trained dog.

• The Pros are that you will be supplied with a professionally trained dog – after care and support will be available but there may be a cost involved. The dog will belong to you. Because it is a ‘not for profit’ you can fundraise quite easily to help pay for your dog.
• The dogs are expensive at upwards of £10,000 although this is a realistic cost, if the dog becomes ill and can’t work or dies you would need to buy another one! There is still a waiting list.

Two well established organisations are Autism Dogs CIC and Supporting Paws.

3. Buy a ‘ready trained dog’ from a company who provides ‘trained dogs’

• The pros are that you have a dog who has been given some basic training so it will be easier than getting a puppy
• The cons are that it is expensive, and there is no way of knowing if the dog is suitable as an assistance dog except for the word of the very persuasive vendor. You will still need to ‘owner train’ the dog to become an assistance dog.

I do not know of any reputable companies who do this and I would never recommend this as a route.

4. Buy your own pet dog and train it yourself – become an ‘owner-trainer’

• The pros are that you can start your journey very quickly, You have control over the process, you can start with either a puppy or a dog. There are organisations who can help you train your dog to become an assistance dog.
• The cons are, if your pet dog turns out not to be suitable (it may be nervous of certain things or really not enjoy doing public access for instance) then you are left with a pet dog and no assistance dog. You will need to fully commit to the training of the dog so time and capacity may be an issue.

Pawsable.com specialise in teaching owners to train autism assistance dogs – autism is their speciality.

Other organisations include Helpful Hounds who also have an owner trainer scheme and Sherlock Hounds.

Details can be found on their website:https://www.helpfulhounds.org.uk/

Each organisation works slightly differently and has a different cost structure so it is worth doing your homework!

Things to look out for and avoid….

• It is worth applying to the charities and doing what you can to get on their lists as a few years may feel like a long time now, but autism doesn’t go away and time flies by.
• If you are going to owner train – particularly if you have children,  be acutely aware that sometimes puppies and autistic children are a really bad combination. Many autistic children can’t make the link between the unpredictable and frankly pretty scary little land shark that bites their hands, pulls on their trouser leg and chews their favourite toys with the lovely calm 6 year old Labrador at their aunty ’s house whom they love. Please never assume that an autistic child will forgive a puppy it’s foibles because puppies are cute. Building the bond between the child and the dog is crucial, and you really need to get some advice in advance from one of the organisations above if you haven’t had a dog before.
• There are some breeds which are more suited than others to the role.
• Sight hounds and scent hounds such as beagles, basset hounds, Hungarian vizslas and pointers are naturally driven to hunt and not natural autism assistance breeds
• Guarding breeds such as German Shepherd dogs, Rottweilers and Dobermans are incredibly sensitive to stress and anxiety and are not naturally suitable breeds to assist people with autism
• Terrier breeds are highly motivated to hunt and chase and are hard to train as assistance dogs.
• The breeds that tend to work well are the gundog breeds such as Labradors, Golden retrievers, spaniels, poodles and mixtures of those such as labradoodles, cavapoos, Cavachon’s etc. They are biddable and easily trainable but this does NOT mean they are ‘easy to train’.

Before getting a dog please remember that dogs bark (end of story— dogs bark!!!), they shed their fur, they need walking twice a day in all weathers, they roll in and eat unspeakable things, and sometimes you ask them to do something and they completely ignore you!

They are sentient beings, they have a personality and will, and they will need at least two years of consistent training input and above all PATIENCE and understanding when things don’t go according to plan.

Because of this, even though they may love dogs, a full time assistance dog is not always the right choice for an autistic person.

Dogs will not always follow your schedule in the way that you want them to.

When you own a dog you need to have some ability to be adaptable to its needs when they don’t coincide with yours and to be able to manage unexpected change – or at least have strategies to cope.

Hilary Armour, Chief Executive at Dogs for Autism
Website: www.dogsforautism.org.uk