The first animal that I adored was my aunt Lauran’s Border Collie, Jenny. As a child, I was hypersensitive to certain sensations, particularly touch and noise. This meant that soft items felt, well, super soft. I loved the feel of Jenny’s hair. Furthermore, she was a very gentle dog who enjoyed being petted and touched. An often-lonely child, I would spend hours reveling in our connection.
Most people appear to benefit from pet companionship. Pets provide us with attention and oftentimes, social and emotional support. Having the unconditional love of another being is life-changing, especially when you are a person who struggles to form and maintain friendships.
Teaching a child to care for an animal is a great exercise in developing awareness of another being’s needs and feelings. Through feeding, walking, and otherwise caring for an animal, we see how our actions directly affect another’s level of wellbeing. When teaching people about empathy, a therapist will often ask them to identify how someone else might be feeling in a specific situation. For example, Jenny will be happy if she eats and walks in the morning; otherwise she will be hungry and sad. This is a helpful way to teach children to identify cues indicating that a person may be feeling a specific way. Taking diligent care of a pet requires ongoing awareness of the critter’s needs and feelings.
Compared to humans, animals appear to experience a less complex range of social dynamics and emotions. Animals are often more transparent in their emotions than humans are. Therefore, it is typically easier to determine an animal’s feelings and thought processes. This provides groundwork for children to examine basic cause-and-effect relationships. Animals tend to display clear indicators of contentment when given love and care such as food, human attention, and opportunity to exercise. While humans also embrace these things, there are often many variables influencing how what is being offered is perceived. Animals provide a simpler model to demonstrate these cause-and-effect relationships to a child.
Animals exhibit clear and consistent boundaries during their interactions with humans, too. For example, most animals send clear messages when they are handled roughly. They may communicate through hostile sounds (for example, growling or hissing,) or by attempting to run away, or even biting or striking out with claws. These interactions provide a good opportunity to tutor children about human social boundaries. For example, Jenny likes to be petted by humans, but she does not like to be picked up by them. Parallels can then be drawn to our human friends who like to be talked to, but often do not want to be hugged or touched.
Presently, I am the mother of two mini-Australian shepherds called Gunner and Mercy. Affectionately known as ‘Aussies,’ this is an active breed demanding a significant level of attention and exercise. In turn, they provide love and companionship. Being an independent adult with high-functioning autism, it is beneficial for me to maintain ongoing interactions with other beings. While Gunner and Mercy do not talk to me verbally, they provide ongoing interaction and communication without imposing the same complex social dynamics that people often do. The nonverbal social rules that humans expect me to understand automatically, can often become exhausting to navigate. I find that attending to Gunner and Mercy consistently helps me to maintain ongoing awareness of my surroundings in an enjoyable way. Most importantly, they provide steady unconditional love in a world where human relationships are often unstable.
Introducing individuals on the autism spectrum to animals not only provides an excellent emotional support framework, but also introduces wonderful teaching experiences. Many people tend to find interactions with animals safer than those with humans. There is a lot of room for people to benefit by introducing support animals into therapeutic settings as well as into their day-to-day lives. Humans in every walk of life are fortunate to be able to embrace the gifts of our animal counterparts.
