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Help!

Gingergnome

My lovely lad is 8 and has Aspergers.  He's the middle of 3 boys, my older lad has Autism & ADHD (he's 10).

DS2 is a really outdoorsy boy and generally struggles at this time of year when the weather isn't so good and there isn't so much daylight.  Anyway, he's always been wary of dogs but now he's refusing to go outside at all unless it's necessary (ie to the car to do the school run).  He won't play in the garden although it's fully enclosed.  He says he's scared of being chased by a dog.  

Any advice?  

He spent yesterday afternoon with us at our friends' home.  They have a wee yorkie and he spent the whole time playing with the dog and running about with its toys begging it to chase him!

We don't know what to do.  He won't go out of the house unless necessary.  We have to take everyone into consideration ... we need to be able to take the boys to the park or out as normal but we also don't want to make DS2 even more stressed.  He's been angry and aggressive with us all weekend ... we can calm him by holding him tightly and talking calmly to him but both DH and I have noticed that he's excessively fidgety as if he can't control himself.  

Parents

  • Seconded on the unpredictability. There are too many outsized or aggressive dogs around, even pit bull terriers.

    Too many people nowadays walk around with rottweilers and dobermans they clearly cannot control properly. These dogs might be friendly natured, but to a stranger passing their unpredictability cannot be ignored, and lets face it, the intention of most owners having these dogs is to intimidate others on a "don't mess with me or I'll set my dog on you" basis.

    Then there are those owners with out of control dogs that annoy everyone else, and if you protest you get told "my dog has every bit as much right as you to be here"

    Its not so much the dogs but the people with them......

    But with autism an inclination to anticipate negative outcomes, and erratic behaviours that dogs may perceive as unfamiliar, must inevitably make things harder. They say dogs pick up on fear in humans and react on a "pecking order" basis - here's a human I can boss around", but more importantly they react to "different" looking humans.

    Also sudden barking or barking from different directions, will have impact.

    So its not so much how he relates to dogs but a difference between dogs he knows, and which know him, and dogs he doesn't know who can present a very real threat.

    So this is very likely to be an issue for him.

    How to resolve it - well there are lots of people other than just with autism, who are scared by dogs. Originally there were some constraints on the more dangerous dogs, like pit bulls, but this has "gone soft".

    I think there needs to be more restriction on having big or aggressive dogs. I really don't understand the mentality of people who keep dobermans and rottweilers in urban environments where they cannot possibly get enough exercise. And people with pit bulls etc., well we know most of them are drug dealers, so its not just the pit bulls the law is failing to address.

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  • Seconded on the unpredictability. There are too many outsized or aggressive dogs around, even pit bull terriers.

    Too many people nowadays walk around with rottweilers and dobermans they clearly cannot control properly. These dogs might be friendly natured, but to a stranger passing their unpredictability cannot be ignored, and lets face it, the intention of most owners having these dogs is to intimidate others on a "don't mess with me or I'll set my dog on you" basis.

    Then there are those owners with out of control dogs that annoy everyone else, and if you protest you get told "my dog has every bit as much right as you to be here"

    Its not so much the dogs but the people with them......

    But with autism an inclination to anticipate negative outcomes, and erratic behaviours that dogs may perceive as unfamiliar, must inevitably make things harder. They say dogs pick up on fear in humans and react on a "pecking order" basis - here's a human I can boss around", but more importantly they react to "different" looking humans.

    Also sudden barking or barking from different directions, will have impact.

    So its not so much how he relates to dogs but a difference between dogs he knows, and which know him, and dogs he doesn't know who can present a very real threat.

    So this is very likely to be an issue for him.

    How to resolve it - well there are lots of people other than just with autism, who are scared by dogs. Originally there were some constraints on the more dangerous dogs, like pit bulls, but this has "gone soft".

    I think there needs to be more restriction on having big or aggressive dogs. I really don't understand the mentality of people who keep dobermans and rottweilers in urban environments where they cannot possibly get enough exercise. And people with pit bulls etc., well we know most of them are drug dealers, so its not just the pit bulls the law is failing to address.

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