An anchor in a child’s stormy world
A boy with autism met a dog named Harris. Their relationship is bringing a family new hope
It was 8:45 on a Thursday morning, cold enough for puffy winter boots but not cold enough for snow.
Kat Anderson woke up rooting for at least a dusting, but the sidewalk was perfectly clear. As maybe only mothers of children with autism know, a length of bare pavement that looks harmless to ordinary eyes rarely is.
Ordinary eyes don’t notice the cracks and splotches of paint that can become an obsession for some kids, or even make them bolt into traffic.
Atlas Anderson, 3, was going to walk to school, tied at the waist to his new Labrador and golden retriever cross.
The 70-pound dog was bred to be a sort of life-jacket for Atlas, one of the youngest children in Canada to receive a national service dog. Kat and George Anderson brought Harris home — to a pretty brick Victorian in Orangeville — just before Halloween following months of intense training.
They had been on a wait list for nearly a year when the charity in Cambridge, Ont., called to say their $30,000 gift was ready. That’s the value of each highly trained dog over the course of its eightto 10-year working life.
National Service Dogs is the first program in the world to provide this opportunity to families with kids who have autism.
Wave a steaming hamburger patty below Harris’s glistening brown snout and he won’t even sniff it. (That was an actual, if cruel, test, one of many he had to pass to be certified as a working dog.) His job is to keep Atlas safe. To keep him from running away.
It may sound odd to tie a floppy-haired, doe-eyed toddler to a creature twice his size.
But successful “tethering,” as the agency calls the stretch of black heavy-duty nylon that runs from Harris’s vest to a belt around Atlas’s waist, is the only way for this dog to do his job.
Diagnosed at 2 with severe autism, Atlas (who turned 4 on Dec. 18) doesn’t respond to his own name.
He loves hugs. They’re one of the few things he asks for without prompting, but it’s not about bonding.
“It’s that feeling of resistance,” said Kat, 34, who runs a small craft business from home. “It’s almost like the universe isn’t providing enough physical input for him.” His compulsion for hugs and weighty blankets has its own official acronym: SPD, for Sensory Processing Disorder.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that can make communicating and socializing really difficult.
Atlas can match 20 cards in a memory game on his iPad with ease and recite episodes of Blue’s Clues word for word. But yell “Danger, stop!” and he won’t.
He craves routine. When he enters an unfamiliar environment, his intolerance can look like bad parenting to people who don’t know better.
Like that time in Walmart with Kat and his little sister Poppy. He equates being in a building with being at home.
So he follows his after-school ritual. Jacket off. Hat off. Boots off. The habit is soothing but undone by strange sounds, sights and smells that can send him reeling in a heartbeat. Often, his impulse is to run away.
That night, instead, he was a fish out of water, all limp and flailing on the floor.
That’s how the first tethering went the week they brought Harris home.
“It spun his world around a little,” Kat says. “Like shaking a snowglobe.”
They were at a McDonald’s parking lot in Orangeville with two trainers from National Service Dogs.
Atlas tried to run but got only as far as the four-foot tether would allow. When he realized he couldn’t run, he flopped to the ground. With coaxing from the women and the dog, Atlas eventually entered the restaurant to have his fries, which he ate while Harris lay beneath the table at the boy’s feet.
The walk back to the van was another kind of hell, with the trainers stopping traffic in the parking lot while Kat tried to pry Atlas from the asphalt.
By the time Atlas was buckled into his car seat, he was in full-blown meltdown. Kat looked at the trainers in panic. “I have no control,” she said. What she didn’t realize, the trainers said, was that she actually did, despite the spectacle, and that Harris had her back.
“We dropped the leash, there was nobody holding it,” the trainer said. “He was following your lead. The dog was doing its job.”
Give it time, then try again, they urged.
Harris and Atlas would spend the next two months untethered, getting used to each other. Harris became part of Atlas’s routine. With help from Kat and George, twice a day Atlas pours the kibble, adding a bit of water so it swooshes around the bowl. Each meal is delivered with a hug.
Kat worried whether the bond was real or whether it was something they had forced on Atlas because the stakes were so high. A successful hookup wouldn’t just be proof of her son’s first real bond, which would hopefully bridge into friendships with his peers. It could keep him safe, and could also bring the entire family a measure of freedom.
Last year, “basically we were hermits in our house,” Kat said. “It becomes quite depressing, especially in the winter. You can’t get together with your friends and their kids because it’s too overstimulating.”
There are no proven therapies that universally treat autism.
While the first reports on the positive effects of dogs on socially withdrawn children date back to the 1960s, the field of study has gained ground in the past decade.
Researchers at the universities of Guelph, Calgary and Alberta found that dogs do more than protect the physical safety of children with autism. The kids were calmer, less anxious, less prone to emotional outbursts, according to the 2008 study published in the journal Qualitative Health Research.
A more recent Quebec study examined levels of cortisol — the stress hormone — in the saliva of 42 children. They found cortisol was considerably lower when dogs were present and rose when dogs were removed from the families. The study was published in Psychoneuroendocrinology in 2010.
Washington State University’s Francois Martin and Jennifer Farnum reported “an increase in hand flapping” in the Western Journal of Nursing Research. While this behaviour is typically considered undesirable, the authors saw it as a “mode of expressing excitement and exhilaration.”
Two weeks after the McDonald’s meltdown, footage from a video monitor in Atlas’s room brought the Andersons hope and relief. The video shows Atlas sitting up in bed during the night and reaching over to hug and kiss Harris. It was the first time they’d seen Atlas do this without any prompting. They continued to watch and let the bond develop. They noticed an increase in eye contact. He’s made strides in food therapy, branching out beyond baby cereal, smoothies, apple juice and Goldfish crackers. For the first time in his life he is eating raw apples, carrots and oatmeal — textures that made him gag in the fall. He’s more focused and confident in speech therapy — entering the therapist’s room ahead of Kat, which is a big deal for a kid who a few months ago was banging on the door to get out. The Andersons don’t know how much of this new, positive behaviour is related to Harris or whether it will last. There are no studies that gauge an autism service dog’s long-term impact. At the very least, Harris represents a constant, predictable force for a kid who thrives on those things. And so, on that chilly Thursday morning, Kat and George decided it was time to try the tether again. George, a 35-year-old IT consultant who typically commutes to downtown Toronto daily for work, stayed home. They called back the trainers. The goal this time would be to walk from home to Princess Margaret Public School, where Atlas attends all-day junior kindergarten. The Andersons hope Harris will attend class full-time with Atlas in September. Once you cross the street, it’s a straight path from their front porch to school. One hundred and fifty metres — a distance Usain Bolt covers in less than 15 seconds. Google Maps
“Basically we were hermits in our house . . . It becomes quite depressing, especially in the winter. You can’t get together with your friends and their kids because it’s too overstimulating.”
KAT ANDERSON
ON LIFE BEFORE HARRIS
suggests non-Olympic sprinters can walk it in two minutes. For Atlas, it can take up to 20.
He has memorized every tiny circle spray-painted on the pavement in shades of neon blue and green by Orangeville city workers marking repair work.
When the ground is not covered in snow, the dots are little landmines that can set Atlas off. He needs to jump on each one in a specific order just to move forward.
“If he misses one, he will come back and do it again,” mom Kat says. “There are 10 or 12 dots in a span of three houses. That area alone takes us five or six minutes.”
That morning, Atlas’s winter gear went on with ease. (Kat started dressing him in snow pants in the fall so he could get used to the routine.)
When the belt was clipped around the middle of his jacket and connected to Harris’s purple vest, Atlas did not flinch.
On the sidewalk, the two walked in step, the boy holding a short leash that reminds Atlas that Harris is his responsibility and reminds Harris that Atlas is his boss.
Kat held on to a longer lead that reminds everybody she’s there if needed.
Atlas started to sing. “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
The trainers walked backwards a few feet ahead, watching the boy and his dog with their jaws open, their lips pulled back in huge grins.
The neon dots on the sidewalk didn’t exist.
Just before they passed the school fence, Atlas, still holding the leash, lay down, his cheek pressed to the sidewalk. He didn’t squirm or yell. He looked content, like he saw the finish line ahead of everyone else. Like he was taking a victory nap.
With a gentle prod from Kat and Harris, Atlas stood up and walked the last few steps into the school.
Time: Eight minutes. A new record.