Companion Animals and Austism/Aspergers

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I saw this video and thought it was really nice. A happy story where everyone benefited.

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/adop ... r-hug-mom/

Does anyone have a similar story?

My family have had a dog of some kind throughout all my life. And whilst I hate things like cuddles from humans in the real world (internet cuddles are awesome though), that all goes out of the window for pets. Our second dog in particular was the one I think I had the closest bond to... not that I dislike any of the others, but the first dog was older than me, so was a little stand-offish at times toward me and the current dog has a more of a balanced affection toward the whole family so I don't really feel a particularly special bond with her... but all the same, each of the dogs has been a very important part of my life, and every time we've lost one (old age took the first, a heart attack took the second) I felt like I could never love another dog again, it was so traumatic.

Honestly, I don't know what I would have become without the dogs. We've had cats too, but one of them was the devil in cat form and the other went missing a short time after we got her (she was a rescue cat who other family members found, but one of them was allergic I think so they dropped the cat off with us... I think the cat was abandoned because of a skin condition (she had scabs all over her skin and left them lying around everywhere she went). We think that a fox might have gotten to her or something. We've also had fish, rats, budgies and a hamster, but they were all too small for the same kind of relationship.

I love that! We had a Siamese cat like that when I was a kid. To be fair, we would play with her in a way that some people would call torture. I remember taking her to the supermarket and she jumped onto the checkout counter and got scared of the moving belt. She also chewed up my mother's favorite scarf.

Recently, we had a beloved dog that went from very healthy to very sick in about a month. It turned out that she had cancer and we had to euthanize her. I felt very sad after she was gone. She left us in January and it's too soon to think of getting another one.

We looked into an assistance dog for me, but we all decided that since I get round the clock assistance from my family and the dog would end up being someone else they would have to look after, it was decided to wait until I'm an adult if I need one then.

Right now I have a companion cousin who is my age. He's a good boy and knows how to do tricks like roll over and beg lol.

Well, I got my greyhound 4 years ago and she hasn't helped my difficulty in bonding with other humans like the guy in the story, but she does help when I have a bad day and she always makes me feel better, so I am very happy about that.

My cousin never rolled over for me!

My dog always helped me too, both good and bad days. She always made a good day better.