I believe my last dog had AS!

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This is not a joke of any sort. I truly believe that my last dog had Aspergers, if such a thing can exist for animals. This particular dog, a cocker spaniel, is not alive anymore, and hasn't been for at least a year, but in his seven years of existence, I believe he had AS! My newer dog is much different, so I don't think he has AS.

Here's some traits of my previous AS-stricken dog:

(1) He didn't like to be touched. He'd growl, throw a fit and bite if anyone tried to pick him up.

(2) He wasn't a social dog. He had his moments of play and all, but he wasn't too interested in other dogs. In fact, he seemed to hate a few of the other dogs around my neighborhood.

(3) He didn't appear to know how to communicate properly. He used to growl more than anything else if people came too close at certain times or yelled too loudly.

(4) He used to stim, believe it or not. This may be true of many dogs, but he used to chew paper and a lot of other things right up until his older years. He loved the sound of ripping paper, not just chewing it, but tearing it apart. My newer dog does this too, but to a far less degree and doesn't show much of an interest in ripping paper.

(5) He was hyperactive, maybe even had traits of ADHD. He had these awesome sputs of energy where he would run around the house from room to room, sometimes hitting things in his way. Actually, my newer dog does this too, but he doesn't have the other traits.

If I could determine what an obsessive interest is in a dog, my previous dog probably had one of those, too. Like, maybe ripping paper all the time was one of his obsessive interests.

- Ray M -

AS dog? dogs cannot have AS. However, I have always wanted to know if female dogs use tampons for their monthy periods.

Chav...you're so full of it!

I don't know about that dog though Aeturnus, maybe it was just because he was a cocker spaniel. Sometimes those dogs can be a little crazy due to inbreeding.

My cat is autistic. There's even a web page somewhere about cats being naturally autistic. Link, anybody?

My parents have a dog that's like that (while she trusts my family completely, she is terrified of everyone else, and has a lot of weird behavior).

I think it's some form of PTSD (the dog's former owners abandoned and very likely beat her)

That is so weird...I had a dream last night about a talking dog with Aspergers.

Actually, a lot of that doesn't apply to the cats I have had at all. I had one cat that was very communicative (with meows so complex my family would make jokes about it talking). Most of the cats I have had liked to do things like present us with dead animals, and all but one would constantly seek attention, and two of them appeared to be very close to eachother.

...well A.3, and B and C are distinctive feline traits.
(though one cat followed the criteria closely)

The constantly talking cat was probably a siamese mix. Yes? No?
My son has a beautiful orange tabby that talks constantly. It also has a somewhat wedge shaped head and larger than usual ears for a tabby. The vet said it definitely is part siamese.

My burmese was a talker. He had lots of personality, probably more like a dog than a cat. He used to think I was a tree and climb up my legs and sit on my head. Sometimes he lost his grip and slid all the way down with his claws in, which made my psychologist at the time think I was into self-harm.

Perhaps you're on to something.

Dogs should normally be social. It is not unlikely that social behavior could get impaired, just like anything else.

Manx cats are actually social, while regular cats are like us. One could consider the Manx breed to have neurotypical disorder http://isnt.autistics.org/

Perhaps there are deviations from normal social behavior in other mammals, analogous to Asperger's syndrome in humans.

Like nomore stated that most cats are autistic, I believe most dogs are ADD/ADHD:

Most dogs I have seen require constant attention and simulation to be happy. When a dog is confined in a way that it cannot get this stimulation, it's behavior gets really bad! This is one of the reasons why I think it's cruel to own a dog when nobody can stay home and be with it

Dogs are also easily distracted, and have extremely short attention spans. Watch how quickly a dog will change it's focus when you are playing with it if another moving object comes within sight. The simple fact that dogs get lost so easily seems to be related to this. As their attention quickly changes from one thing to another, they follow each and every thing that catches their attention for that brief time, it's not long before the dog has realized that is hasn't paid attention to where it was going, and now it doesn't know where it is!

Dogs enjoy being the center of attention, and will do anything and everything to attract it, like barking, jumping, running around,etc. Just watch how annoying someone's dog is when you visit them, and you aren't giving the dog any attention!

Dogs also rarely ever use good judgement, and make inpulse decisions. Dogs will all too frequently attack things that are much larger and stronger than they are without any sort of thougt that that larger animal could do them significant harm!

The fact that your dog was showing aspie traits is quite amazing, as I've rarely ever seen too many dogs that are particularly anti-social.