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.    

          

  • 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!

  • Greetings again. With regards to the Main Topic, I attempt to revive this Thread again, and state (again?) that I had begun a Thread addressing this which few understood, and I wondered if anyone new might understand it (again). If you type the word BRAINWAVES into the Search, the Thread should be found. Yet the Point of it was that "Autistic Persons" and "Children" and, um, "Animals" generally express Brainwave Frequencies not much above 13Hertz, and that is why Children are often seen as suitable for Dogs/Cats/Animals, and why severely Autistic Persons seem to act like "children"...

    This is what I wanted to discuss upon the other Thread, yet no-one understood 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!  

  • We both on occasion misread or misunderstand each other, but we do talk it through and usually everything is fine.

    Always nice to see you about here when most have gone, I don’t feel so lonely.

    take care.

    x()x

  • Thank You so very much, Sir. (Another maybe good thing about the awful Internet, maybe...exchanging pleasantries) Thank you so much for the response, I did think about it much, but I do have to sign off now (personal circumstances). Really, Thanks and Good Fortune to all who may read, as I say. 

  • Read your reply. No worries, I misread your reply before,I thought I had upset you which would upset me greatly..

    take care, All is well.x()x

  • Oh my... just as I was about to sign off... you Post, Mr. Warrior... and reply right at myself?? I cannot ignore this - although I have those pictures already from another Thread (the Chat Thread)... I really wanted to offer apologies for snapping at you upon that "Parent Thread", and wondered if you read my long explanation...? Just Post a Yes or No, and that will do, for I know that this is off-topic and I do have a bit of a temper, sorry...

  • My dogs,hopefully if the pictures show up!

    Dusty and socks, sisters,

    Enjoy DC,

  • To Endymion...For picutures, 800x800 Pixels, or Maximum 1 Megabyte or less, and must be in JPEG format. I cannot comment upon the picture of that Tabby which I did not see before my previous Post here...just now... because such pictures always make me think... I WANT ONE! Cuuuuuuute....

  • Very wise, I would not go to one either these days having been pounced on by over enthousiastic aunts and neighbours in the past:) Usually after one too many Babychams :)

    I do enjoy watching on TV however.

  • Please excuse me, but I shall definitely sign off <> after this Post, if it shows up. I typed in a much longer Reply just now, yet it disappeared. What follows is part of what I typed up, and I was asking others to start another Thread because I am not allowed to have any Animals for myself...

    If the Cat was that much at you, then what I said is still true, yet they might have been asking for food, or attempting to cement your friendship with them (i.e. "Can I come into your house and sleep there and claim it as my own property and you feed me and will you help me when I am in trouble and I would like to exchange SCENTS so as not to forget you...?")

  • Aww! She is gorgeous :) Very regal looking.

    I will one day have to learn how to post photo's on here but it's much too tech-y for my tired brain at the moment. 

  • Here is a very old photo of the young lady in question.

  • Um... okay... I am still online, and shall perhaps unhelpfully reply to this last, Mr. Math... but I am seriously both becoming nervous and preferring that someone who actually *has* pets would start a "Pet Thread"...

    If the Cat was *that much* at you, then what I said is still true, yet they might have been asking for food... or attempting to cement your friendship with them (i.e. "Can I come into your house and sleep there and claim it as my own property and you feed me and will you help me when I am in trouble and I would like to exchange SCENTS so as not to forget you...?")...

    I am not allowed my own animals, you see, and so I ask... can someone else respond or start another (Wildlife) Thread, please? 

  • She was staring into my eyes and then touching noses.

  • A "Winged-Cat"? I can't help but picture that literally, and it sounds terrifying! Assuming you don't mean it literally, what is it? 

  • 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 can understand where your poor wee dog is coming from, having been rushed and mauled by my own species too often I've learned to be distrustful of them too. Usually at Hogmanay parties - which i avoid nowadays!!