Finding HopeTeam Daisy – One Year In
Posted on June 20, 2026
TW: mention of pet loss and grief, mentions of meltdowns and harmful stimming. No descriptions. Some discussion of people responding disrespectfully to Daisy while working but nothing upsetting, just ignorant.
As of the end of April, my Autism Assistance Dog, Daisy, has been fully qualified for a whole year and in that time, she’s been a huge help to me both inside and outside the house. I’d hoped to have this post written and up by the actual anniversary but then my youngest cat, Sooty, had to be rushed to the vet and put to sleep very suddenly, which left me in a complete spiral. I ended up in the worst depression pit I’ve experienced in years and it took me a while to climb out of it and even longer to get my life sorted out enough to sit down and write this. So here we finally are…
Daisy moved into our home at the beginning of March 2025 and was fully qualified two months later at the end of April. But of course, the learning – for both of us – didn’t stop there and I wanted to use the first anniversary of her qualifying as an assistance dog to write about what this first year has been like, how much we’ve learned, and how much we’ve grown as a partnership. I did post a video on the year anniversary of her moving in that I will share here too, at the end of this point, if for no other reason than because she’s really, really cute.
May 2026 in Photos
Posted on June 1, 2026
TW: mentions of depression and pet loss/grief.
As I’ve said in previous posts, I love a good photo challenge and I really liked the prompts posted for May: I felt like they allowed for more creativity than some of the previous months have (hence why I didn’t end up doing or finishing them) and, as a result, I enjoyed the challenge a lot more. I started the month in a really deep bit of depression so it wasn’t the worst thing for me to have something to do each day, even if it was as simple as finding something to take a photo off, and then, as I came out of that pit, it served as a good way to remember what a very hectic but also really special month…
Sooty, The Littlest Kitten
Posted on May 24, 2026
TW: sick pet, pet death, pet loss, pet grief, medical environments, medical equipment, etc.
Several weeks ago now, I got home late, high on the adrenaline of an incredibly fun and productive day in the studio to find the youngest in my family of cats, Sooty, collapsed in the garden, lethargic and clearly in pain. Despite having just driven for two hours, my Mum and I bundled her up in the cat blanket and got back in the car, headed for the out of hours vet. We arrived at about ten o’clock and she was whisked away, having only gotten more distressed during the drive. I wasn’t in denial – it was clear that something was wrong – but I was trying not to jump to the worst case scenario, at least until we had more information. I didn’t want to torture myself unnecessarily, especially since we didn’t know how long it would be before someone came back to give us an update. My hope, which I felt wasn’t desperately unrealistic, was that she’d eaten something bad for her or something like that and that dehydration from lying in the sun for who knows how long had worsened her condition; I hoped that, perhaps, if that dehydration could be resolved relatively easily, then whatever the bigger problem was wouldn’t be quite as serious as it appeared. Looking back, I don’t know if that was reasonable or unreasonable but I was just trying to get through each minute of waiting for an update.
Finding Hope 