Merrill and Hunter at Walmart
Photo by Dagny

Follow the progress of Hunter, an 11 month old lab in training to be a Service Dog for a 4 year old Autistic boy.

So many of you have asked me what I thought Hunter's chances were of becoming Merrill's service dog.
My answer: he already is!
Dagny (Mom) reported that Merrill was noticeably more anxious and upset when Hunter spent a week training at my house. Even though Hunter had been in their home for less than 1 month, he has already become an integral part of Merrill's day to day routine and especially, the all important bed time ritual.

At bedtime, Merrill drifts off to sleep in a chair. He wakes disoriented after a very short while and goes to the floor, where Hunter is sleeping at his feet. He then he hugs pushes, and handles Hunter quite roughly, then goes straight to his bed.
Hunter, to his credit, loves this.
Now to you and I that may not seem like a lot, but to the family, this new bed time routine, has already brought a huge amount of relief and peace. Bedtimes rituals with young kids can be difficult as it is, but having an autistic child makes it all the harder. Merrill is the youngest of four children and he has another sibling with Asbergers syndrome, another form of autism.

Since my last post about Hunter, the dog has come to class twice and done really well both nights. Dagny stayed for several hours and last week, and Hunter did every thing my advanced class did. But best of all, he is doing incredibly well on just plain chilling out. Hunter is a far stretch far from your typical young lab and I am thankful to his breeder.

This picture was taken in class two weeks ago. You can see the dog is pushing his head on Dagny's lap. We hit on this quite by accident, when he basically was just begging for treats. Dagny had the good sense to start to teach the command "push" on cue. This simple act of Hunter resting his head in the boy's lap will help Merrill to stay focused. How cool is that? The dog to his credit, picked it up in a flash.

Dagny took Merrill and Hunter to Walmart not long ago and she told me that for the first time ever, Merrill didn't overload and she got to finish what she was doing without Merrill having a melt down. Dagny reports that Merrill is doing a great job holding on to the tabs on the service dog vest while walking in public. She told me a remarkable story about how Merrill, when he would start to feel overwhelmed in the store, draped himself over the dog for a few minutes, got grounded and then continued on as if nothing happened. Never before on a trip to Walmart had Merrill remained calm for the entire shop and there have been times, she had to leave before accomplishing what she came for. Dagney told me that when she got to the car she was so grateful for Hunter's help she gave him nearly a whole bag of treats that she had just purchased for him, and cried. She sat in her car hugging the dog and crying and feeding him and telling him how wonderful he is. Hunter is one special dog. We only JUST started to teach to stand and brace, and he doesn't even know it yet, but the dog just stood there with a small boy draped across his back helping the boy to filter out all the overwhelming stimulus he was being bombarded with. The Walmart story of course made me well up with tears. You?
Good Dog Hunter!

Merrill has a blog, Merrills Fund. Check it out and send them a donation! They can sure use it. I have given them a very deep discount because I feel what we are doing is very important, but I am not free,and neither is the day to day expenses of this dog or a special needs child.