In mid January, about a month after my third playdate with my Assistance Dog in Training, Daisy, my Mum and I went back up to the Autism Dogs farm for another playdate and our very first sleepover! I was very excited about that. I was sad not to have Izzy, my eighteen-month-old Pomchi, with us but we’d all agreed that it would just be too difficult to have both dogs in the small hotel room, for us and the dogs. It just wouldn’t have been fair to either of them so Izzy got to have her own sleepover and we were able to focus all of energy on Daisy. It was an experience, for sure!

THE NIGHT BEFORE

As had become our routine, my Mum and I drove up the night before the day of the first session of the playdate and stayed in the same hotel: it’s familiar and they have a reasonable number of my safe foods so I don’t have to worry about not finding things I can eat. We were both tired from the travel and had a pretty early start so it wasn’t long before we were going to bed. It was weird to be there without Izzy; it was weird to try and sleep without Izzy. She’s always slept cuddled up with me (apart from a few occasions where I’ve had to be away) and it’s become very strange and disconcerting to not have her snuggled up against me.

DAY ONE

We were up early the next morning and, having had a meltdown triggered by sensory overwhelm on the last trip, we’d brought all of my own bathroom staff (since that stuff had been the most triggering) and that made getting up and out of the hotel so much easier. We were at the farm on time and I was in a much better headspace than I had been for the previous playdate.

We met Daisy in the paddock and we spent the first half an hour or so (my chronic fatigue and POTS make it hard to do even that, let alone more right now) playing and practicing recall. Then we went inside to the sensory room and spent the rest of the session there. We were able to play and cuddle and continue building our bond as a human-assistance dog team. We also went through all of her basic commands again, which is definitely more for my benefit than hers: she’s got them down (although it’s really good for her to learn to see me as the person who makes the rules and gives her instructions). Whenever I’m not at the farm, I get really anxious that I don’t really know the commands but then I go back and work with Daisy and they all come back. I end up feeling silly for doubting myself but it happens every time. I think that will probably only go away when I’m using them with Daisy everyday.

The trainers have been working with Daisy on her deep pressure therapy training and so I got to do that with her for the first time and that was really exciting. She’s so good at it already; I’m constantly in awe of how smart these dogs are and how great the trainers are. Admittedly, the first time we tried it, she was a bit confused; she didn’t quite understand what I was asking her to do (which could easily have been on me for not getting the command quite correct – as I said, it was our first try). But then, within two or three tries, she absolutely had it. She absolutely knew what she was supposed to be doing.

At the end of our session, we took Daisy back hotel. We had a couple of members of the team come with us just to double check that everything was safe and Daisy-proofed. The rooms are pretty simple and we’d spent some time packing everything up before we’d left that morning so that didn’t take very long. Then they headed back to the farm and it was just me and Mum and Daisy with the evening to hang out together. While I am Daisy’s handler, my Mum is going to be helping me with her care since my chronic illness and physical disabilities do limit my energy and strength and stamina. So, just like the parents of autistic kids and teenagers will help out with the dog, my Mum will be helping me; the team are very understanding of the different circumstances of each autistic person and their support system and how to best manage all of the different aspects. As I said in the last playdate post, I think, working with a team who are so knowledgeable about Autism (as well as many of them actually being autistic) has made the process so much easier than it could’ve been. The difficulties I’ve encountered along the way have been handled with compassion and thoughtfulness and the focus has always been on how I can get the most out of the process and out of my relationship with Daisy; I’ve never felt like an inconvenience or an obstacle, which is a pretty common experience for me when I’m out in the world. I’m lucky (and grateful) to have the support system that I do but even then it’s hard when people make you feel like a burden on their already busy lives. So having Autism Dogs be so supportive at every turn has been amazing.

As soon as Daisy forgot about the team members leaving her, she returned to her curious, exciteable self, sniffing every corner and surface (that she could reach) of the room and then jump from one bed to the other. That was particularly funny after watching Izzy do the exact same thing when first experiencing a hotel; the size difference of the two images made it even funnier. Then she’d drape herself over me for a bit before getting up to drape herself over Mum and back and forward and back and forward. It was both very funny and very adorable. I imagine the hotel room was pretty boring for her compared to the farm, especially since she had constant access to outside space there, and so I don’t think she quite knew what to do with herself. She did start to settle throughout the evening but, of course, that was then interrupted by her dinner (as well as our dinner – not that we were sharing even a crumb of human food with her) and then her evening walk. I can understand it though: it was a lot of unfamiliarity all at once.

My favourite part, of course, was having her sleeping in the bed with me. It was so, so cute; she was so adorably snuggly and pressed herself up against me (or over me) all night. I’m so used to sleeping with a teeny, tiny dog that it was a bit discombobulating to wake up to a pretty big Labrador; it was a very different experience! It’s not exactly a bad problem to have though. I don’t sleep well in hotels and having Daisy there – this breathing, almost snoring, snuggly creature next to me – was very comforting.

DAY TWO

We got up the next morning and managed to navigate the usual routine despite Daisy trying to be involved in everything. Breakfast was a bit more chaotic with a big dog compared to a small dog and it didn’t help that a number of people came up to us and just started stroking her without even asking. She doesn’t have her official jacket yet (which specifically says,’Do Not Touch’) but I still thought it was really strange that people felt entitled to just come over and stroke a dog they didn’t know without getting permission. I grew up with it instilled in me that I should never touch a dog I didn’t know, especially if I hadn’t asked the owner first; you never know if a dog is going to be receptive and something that’s really straightforward and safe for one dog could feel like a real threat to another. It’s not worth the risk. (Maybe it’s petty but it was interesting to me that all of these people were young, white men…) Anyway. I’ve seen this a lot, even with assistance dogs that are jacketed. So that’s definitely a situation that I’m going to have to learn how to handle – quickly and efficiently. I mean, I did handle it each time but I think having a script would help and then practice will just make the whole exchange easier.

Me, Mum, and Daisy headed back to the farm for our second session of the two days. Daisy was great in the car: totalled chilled out and unfazed by the noises, changes in speed, and often uneven ground. She just stretched out on the back seat with me and snoozed as I stroked her.

For our session, we were back in the sensory room and it was mostly more bonding and going through Daisy’s commands, including more practice at Deep Pressure Therapy. Being a Labrador, Daisy is very motivated by food, to the point where she sometimes seems to think that once she’s been given the treat, the task is done and she no longer has to pay attention. This is not the case with Deep Pressure Therapy so that’s going to be a learning curve. But there’s still time to work on that and I love doing it. It’s so fun and so cute and she’s picked it up so fast; I doubt it’ll take long for her to master it. It’s amazing to see how quickly these dogs pick up these skills. The trainers do such an incredible job and it feels like such a privilege to have been able to visit regularly throughout the process and see the progress each time. It’s just amazing; I’m so in awe of them, both the trainers and the dogs!

Eventually, we did have to go so we said our goodbyes and we’ll be back soon for public access and family training.

I feel like the connection between Daisy and I really grew over those two days, much faster and more deeply than it has at any other point in the process; I think that getting to spend that much time together – and that time away from the farm – really gave us the chance to bond in a way that we haven’t been able to at the farm because she’s always been in a familiar space with familiar people where I am the new thing. But going somewhere else, I was the familiar thing and everything else was new so she was more inclined to come back to me. It was definitely my favourite part of the process up to now, even if there were a handful of stressful moments.