Bullied girl with rare skin condition accepts she’s special
Spending week with dog that also has vitiligo helped her gain confidence
Ava’s skin looks different LONDON than other kids’.
The 10-year-old girl has vitiligo, a skin condition that leaves white patches where her skin has no pigment.
When Ava Bright was in Grades 3 and 4, “that’s when it was the worst,” she said Monday.
“People used to call me a cow because of my skin. One time, I was being bullied on the day kids signed an anti-bullying pledge. I said to (a girl bullying me), ‘You signed the pledge’ and she said, ‘I signed it, but not for you,’ ” Ava recalled.
“It made me really sad. But now I just think it’s something I should like about me. I’m a special person.”
In the story of how Ava went from bullied to brave, there is a dog.
Rowdy, a 14-year-old black Labrador retriever, also has vitiligo. Ava recently returned from spending nearly a week with the pooch in Portland, Ore. The purebred has large white patches around his eyes.
“He is really cute,” Ava said on her lunch break at Lord Roberts French immersion public school in London, Ont. “Rowdy helped me gain confidence.
“I’m in the school play, I always used to go to the play wearing a sweater. I would not want to show my skin,” she said.
In a school office, her mother Julie Brown beside her, Ava begins to cry.
“Rowdy has taught me I can wear short-sleeve shirts in public.”
There was something about seeing this dog that showed Ava she is not alone, said her mother.
It all began about a year ago when Brown was on social media and came across Rowdy.
After following the dog on social media, she sent a photograph of Ava to Rowdy’s owner that led to messages and social media sharing.
“She called me and said, ‘I’m starting a GoFundMe campaign’ ” for Ava and a boy from the United States to come out and meet Rowdy, Brown said.
“She really wanted these kids to meet Rowdy” before the old dog passed away, Brown said.
The GoFund Me campaign, aimed at connecting the dog and two kids sharing the same disease, was a hit on social media and money came in, Brown said.
“This is about a lady that had enough heart and wanted a boy and girl to meet her dog, so they could gain confidence and it spiralled from there.”
Ava was diagnosed when she was four years old after a white spot appeared on her back. White spots now cover 60 per cent of her body.
“We did not do anything, we just raised her to be confident, that there is nothing wrong with her. She did not need to be fixed because she is not broken,” said Brown, who works as a restaurant manager.
While they were in Oregon, Ava and her mom did the rounds of media interviews to raise awareness, making her something of a social media celebrity.
The story has been picked up by Inside Edition, BBC, several news websites, as well as social media. Rowdy and the boy were on The View and Dr. Oz.
“People went nuts over Rowdy,” Brown said.
“When we went to the market with Rowdy, we could not move, people were all around us, and they were saying, ‘There is that famous dog and that little girl,’ ” she said with a laugh.
“I am happy there is awareness out there and people know what this is.”
Rowdy helped me gain confidence. I’m in the school play, I always used to go to the play wearing a sweater.