Autism Dogs – Daisy Is Qualified!

I ended the last post in my series about getting my Autism Assistance Dog, Daisy – from my application to Autism Dogs through to the final days of Daisy’s training – with her graduation. She’s fully qualified! Hurray! So, of course, we had to celebrate…

I found a little graduation cap for Daisy and we did a little photoshoot in the garden with lots of treats for Daisy (and Izzy – god forbid, she be left out of anything) and cake for me and Mum. Daisy did look longingly at the cake but we weren’t going to ‘celebrate’ her graduating with a trip to the vet so we refused to give in to those gorgeous, Labrador eyes. But she got lots of treats when she obediently left it alone. It was a beautiful day so we all hung out in the garden together, alternating between playing on the deck and soaking up the sunshine.

(She looked very distinguished!)

It was a long, hard journey, filled with anxiety and self doubt; it’s not an easy process! I’m not sure, if I’d known how hard it would be, whether I would’ve felt capable of it, but then so much good came out of it being so challenging: it also taught me so much about myself, about managing my needs as a neurodivergent, disabled person with mental health struggles, about how to look after myself when I’m overwhelmed or burned out, about patience both with myself and with others, about forgiving myself for not being perfect, about trusting myself and my instincts… and so much more. Not that I’m a master at any of these things, not by any means, but although it was Daisy going through the training (for the most part), I definitely learned a hell of a lot too. And I had no doubt that wouldn’t just stop because Daisy had completed her formal training. We still had so much work to do as a team, so many places to go and so many situations in which to practice the skills from the training.

But reaching graduation was a big achievement for all three of us (four of us if we include Izzy and we probably should because Daisy’s arrival was a big upheaval for her) and it was really good to celebrate that milestone. It was also a moment of change – the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one – and I find change overwhelming and stressful and scary so, although I’m not sure I knew it at the time, I think I needed to just sit and acknowledge it for all that it was in order to adjust and change gears and move forward.

And that is that! The series is complete; the entire process of getting Daisy – my experience of getting an Autism Assistance Dog – is now documented. I’m so very late but I felt that late really was better than never. I struggled to find detailed accounts of the process – both in the context of getting a Service Dog for Autism specifically and doing so in the UK – and so, hopefully, this is will have shed some light on it. It is, of course, just my experience and is bound to be different between organisations but even if it helps someone just to figure out some of the questions they want to ask when looking into an Autism Assistance Dog, then it will have been worth it to post. It’s posts like these – people’s personal experience – that have really helped me figure out what I need and where I could look and who might be the right people to talk to. So hopefully this series of posts can be helpful to anyone looking into getting an Autism Assistance Dog.

It’s now almost a year since Daisy qualified so I will be writing at least one more post about all of this (although, chances are, there could be more as we continue on this path as a team), about this first year working with Daisy. And, oh my god, it has been A Year. It has been a lot, good and bad, and we’ve both learned a lot; I know I certainly have.