HFA or Canine?

This is not to make light of ASD, it's just some things I've noticed and thought I'd share because they seem strange AND strangely familiar to me since my own diagnosis.

My dog adores people, he just can't get enough of them and expects only good things from them. A cuddle from any random person makes him even happier than food - and that's saying something! This makes sense to me because i feel exactly the same about animals, dogs in particular. The thing is, having HFA, I'm nowhere near so relaxed around people and at times actively avoid them because I just can't cope with the stress of social situations. My dog appears to feel this way about other dogs: although he will sometimes tolerate female dogs he often gets so stressed even seeing another dog in the distance that he has what can only be described as severe meltdowns! These meltdowns are entirely out of character compared with his normally friendly, eager-to-please personality. 

He's highly intelligent (a Border Collie / Springer Spaniel cross) and can open doors (inward or outward opening), appears to know the time (to the minute) when his meals are due even when i forget, gets highly excited when we spell w-a-l-k or o-u-t (among other things) and can perform a whole host of weird and wonderful tricks and tasks. He also runs into glass doors, regularly falls off the sofa in an ungainly heap, and has tripped over his own legs more times than I can count. The perfect combination of intelligence and stupidity that I appear to share!  

He alerts us to strangers approaching the house, becoming suddenly deeply-gruff and big 'n' brave sounding (for no reason, he welcomes everyone inside happily, he just SOUNDS brave - masking?) and insists on going ahead on walks or through doorways, stopping to look back as if to say "All clear, it's safe here." He even looks large and imposingly heroic, but he's strangely scared of bananas!? And spiders. And fluff that might be a spider. And the word "ears". And babies.  For myself, I've faced down many challenges in life, big and small, but can't cope with ticking clocks, repetitive bass, the colour purple, or socks with an uneven seam. (Or diagnoses with no follow-up!) 

Either my dog is similarly HFA or I've evolved canine traits.    

          

Parents
  • I thought cats were supposed to be the autistic ones...

    Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

  • Cats autistic?  Interesting theory.

    Autistics often have problems with eye contact.

    I had a relationship with a cat who used to  stare into my eyes at very close range.

  • When a Cat stares directly at you, then they are trying to tell you something important. When they stare not at you, then they are looking at something which humans cannot see.

    I myself started a Thread about this awhile back, but it only had two people replying to it. And they did not understand what I was trying to say.

    I let it go, then...maybe because I am partly a Winged-Cat myself...

  • I see your point, however I think that I'll still benefit from doing the course as it would teach me (hopefully!) the many other computer / internet related skills and techniques that I don't currently have. Particularly a working knowledge of the terminology which would allow me to understand the kinds of helpful information that a thread-question might produce. 

    I can use google, access e-mail (but not attachments because they disappear somewhere inside my laptop when I click 'open' or 'download'), and I've recently learned to use this forum (with lots of help from all of you on here, THANK YOU!), but I can't do much beyond that such as customise my desktop. I only learned that the stuff inside the search bar is called the 'URL' a few months ago so I think learning the language would be a great help. 

    I usually ask my children when I get stuck but seeing as I haven't yet discussed ASD with them I haven't been able to get their help. Anyway, just as when I asked them what a 'URL' was, they usually roll their eyes in despair at my questions!  The ECDL course will do me good, it's good to have a challenge and learn new skills and it might even make it easier when either looking for employment or continuing with my studies. I'm looking forward to it!

  • To remedy this embarrassing situation I'm currently looking into doing the ECDL course with my local college

    ...Greetings to Endymion... Please excuse this sort of Reply... yet, if you were to begin a Thread asking "How to Post Pictures upon this Forum", then I might predict that you would be fairly 'buried under' with advice, which might save you any costs or time of taking an official course about it. It is really not that complicated... for using/being able to use Computers and/or the Internet is THE main complicated matter...!

  • Thank you for the information but I'm afraid my computer / internet 'disability' goes much deeper than that: I have no idea how to put a photo from a phone or camera onto my laptop in the first place, I wouldn't know where it would be to enable me to access it if I did somehow manage this transfer, and (I'm sorry!) I wouldn't actually understand anything about Megabytes or JPEG format whether it was in English or Chinese.

    To remedy this embarrassing situation I'm currently looking into doing the ECDL course with my local college so perhaps by the time I finish it, I will know how to do all of these things and actually understand helpful information like this. Thank you for trying to help though!  

Reply
  • Thank you for the information but I'm afraid my computer / internet 'disability' goes much deeper than that: I have no idea how to put a photo from a phone or camera onto my laptop in the first place, I wouldn't know where it would be to enable me to access it if I did somehow manage this transfer, and (I'm sorry!) I wouldn't actually understand anything about Megabytes or JPEG format whether it was in English or Chinese.

    To remedy this embarrassing situation I'm currently looking into doing the ECDL course with my local college so perhaps by the time I finish it, I will know how to do all of these things and actually understand helpful information like this. Thank you for trying to help though!  

Children
  • I see your point, however I think that I'll still benefit from doing the course as it would teach me (hopefully!) the many other computer / internet related skills and techniques that I don't currently have. Particularly a working knowledge of the terminology which would allow me to understand the kinds of helpful information that a thread-question might produce. 

    I can use google, access e-mail (but not attachments because they disappear somewhere inside my laptop when I click 'open' or 'download'), and I've recently learned to use this forum (with lots of help from all of you on here, THANK YOU!), but I can't do much beyond that such as customise my desktop. I only learned that the stuff inside the search bar is called the 'URL' a few months ago so I think learning the language would be a great help. 

    I usually ask my children when I get stuck but seeing as I haven't yet discussed ASD with them I haven't been able to get their help. Anyway, just as when I asked them what a 'URL' was, they usually roll their eyes in despair at my questions!  The ECDL course will do me good, it's good to have a challenge and learn new skills and it might even make it easier when either looking for employment or continuing with my studies. I'm looking forward to it!

  • To remedy this embarrassing situation I'm currently looking into doing the ECDL course with my local college

    ...Greetings to Endymion... Please excuse this sort of Reply... yet, if you were to begin a Thread asking "How to Post Pictures upon this Forum", then I might predict that you would be fairly 'buried under' with advice, which might save you any costs or time of taking an official course about it. It is really not that complicated... for using/being able to use Computers and/or the Internet is THE main complicated matter...!