In early April, two months after my new Assistance Dog, Daisy, moved in, one of the trainers from the Autism Dogs farm, Julia, came down to do the Family Training and Public Access work that I hadn’t been able to do back in February. It was split into two sessions over two days and at the end of the second day, Daisy would be fully qualified and my official Autism Assistance Dog. That was both exciting and nerve-wracking – to start going out into the world together as a team – but, as nervous as I was, I’d always known that this change, while difficult, was happening in order for new, good things to happen. I just had to get through the difficult to the new and good.

The first two months with Daisy were full of ups and downs and I think I spent most of that time feeling stressed and exhausted. It wasn’t bad and I wasn’t regretting her; it was just incredibly overwhelming. It was a big change when I’m not good with change and not only that, it was a big change in the one space where I feel safest and steadiest and suddenly that steadiness had been flipped upside down. My Mum and I were getting used to having two dogs, the dogs were getting used to each other, the cats were more than a little freaked out by Daisy’s size and enthusiasm… It was very stressful. And as much as I reminded myself that all of this would take time and that there was no reason why everything wouldn’t eventually settle, I was still so anxious that I was failing everybody by doing this, by instigating this change. It was very distressing and I don’t think I was prepared – whether I even could be prepared – for it to feel like that. That’s not to say that there weren’t a lot of lovely moments, lots of cuddling and playing and snoozing together. Daisy is the sweetest, gentlest soul (even if she can charge around the house like a horse at times) and she’s so patient, even when Izzy got wildly jealous of Daisy getting even the slightest bit of attention. But based on the time they’d spent together at the Autism Dogs farm, I had always expected the settling of that relationship to take longer than two months. Izzy has always liked to be close, has always been my protector and emotional support fluff, so it was never going to be easy for her to have to share that role. She picked up some of Daisy’s tasks really quickly, which was very funny; it was a bit like she was saying, “See! You don’t need her! I can do all of these things!” They did make progress but I was looking forward to Julia coming down and being able to give us some advice on how to help them bond.

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