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Hello, I'm new here, and looking for advice.....My daughter is 8. At some point in her life (we aren't sure when or how), she developed a fear of dogs. My entire extended family owns dogs so she has been exposed to them on numerous occasions. She yells, and tries to get away from dogs, but is normally able to ignore them once the dog decides to leave her alone. After years of wanting a dog for our family (myself, my husband, and our neuro-typical daughter), we have brought home a 7 week old… read more
Ditto to the above. If you haven't done this already, I would try to gradually introduce her to the puppy, and confine/control him as much as you can (yeah, not easy to do with a wild puppy!), with just a short time with him early on, and gradually increasing her time with him.
One thing that may build her competence with the puppy is if you give her a role in caring for the puppy. When we first got our current dog, we gave our autistic son the job of feeding him. Basically, it gave him a way to "organize" the concept/thought about the dog (the dog became a part of his routine). Just a suggestion, but you might tell her that the puppy needs lots of care, and the whole family has to take care of him. Teach her how to feed him, maybe read books about puppies, have her watch videos about puppies, etc. For now, I would keep her time with him controlled, short, and positive, until she has time to build up memories of positive, safe interactions.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
@A MyAutismTeam Member, nothing happened because we never bought any pets. We plan on moving so dealing with pets would be a hassle so we will wait until we settle into a new house. I'm not going to give on the pets idea as I've never owned a pet as an adult. See more people treating their pets as substitute kids but I just never had the time or lived in place that would be good for a pet.
@A MyAutismTeam Member i am at this stage with my 6yr old Asd/Spd daughter and 11 week puppy...what happened?
We are about to get a cat then a dog for my kids because we are buying a new house. My kids kind of fear dogs because we never had any but they don't fear the cats roaming around our old neighborhood. It's funny I remember when my Mom bought us a dog when I was 5 years old. That dog tried to bite me in the car on the way home so I climbed over the seats to get away from him. We kept that dog until he died and we got a lot more from him and a cat that we got from our toys. I'd rather have my kids interact with pets than staring at the TV, IPhone/Ipad and computer all day which is what happens too often. My kids have very never played with neighborhood kids so far like I did when I was a kid so I want to get used to dealing with other living things even the non-human types.
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