WARNING: This post is about the death of a pet. Please don’t read if this will be distressing for you.
For a combined total of 20 years, I had two rescue dogs of mixed ancestry and remarkable character in my life. They weren’t therapy dogs or service dogs, but nevertheless gave me a safe space to be neurodivergent. My second dog died recently and her absence is only reinforcing that the bonds with animals can be stronger than those with humans when you’re autistic.
Very recently I had to make the decision to end my dog’s life.
That sentence sounds so clinical because there is no adjective in any thesaurus that could describe my feelings in anything but banalities. As one of the practitioners who supports me said with his usual deep understanding, ‘That’s hard even for neurotypicals, let alone if you’re autistic.’
Euphemisms like ‘euthanasia’ or ‘putting her to sleep’ don’t change the fact she died. It had been 5 years, 10 months, 18 days, and approximately 18 hours since I’d made the same decision about my older dog. For the first time in 20 years, I’m completely alone.
It’s not my intent here to tell you what my dogs were like, other than to say they were both independent, individual characters with all the cleverness of their mixed and only partly knowable working breed ancestries. They weren’t therapy dogs or service dogs. They were just companions found by random chance at animal shelters, discarded by people too stupid and cruel to value them.*
This is not a post about my experience of grieving, either. It’s hard for me to put names on feelings at the best of times.
But I do want to give an account of what it’s like to be an autistic human who has found the deepest of bonds outside of my own species. If you’re not autistic, maybe it might help you to understand why it’s easier for some of us to relate to animals. Or if you have a similar bond, maybe you’ll know you’re not alone.
Dogs can follow autism where humans can’t
There’s a lot of research out there about dogs and autism. I’ve not yet found any that relates to autistic adults. Most of it seems to focus on how specially trained dogs make autistic children seem more ‘normal’ – at least on the outside – and therefore more malleable for integration into neurotypical life.
I didn’t know I was autistic when my first dog came along. Even if I had, any motivation to use her to make myself more acceptable to neurotypicals would have lasted about 5 minutes.
As is the way with dogs, mine gave everything to me. I hope I gave something approximating their steadfastness back. But the one thing they did above all else was create sanctuary from the neurotypical world.
One cold fact of my life is I can only show the entirety of my neurodivergent self to animals, especially dogs, and a few rare practitioners who understand adult autism and have earned my trust. If you’re not in either of those groups, then what you’re seeing is either an edited or constructed version of me.
Only those who can bear witness without judgement share in the messy side of my autism and ADHD. That includes the shutdowns, the overwhelm, the exhaustion and frustration from managing co-occurring health conditions, and the days when my executive function goes from bad to non-existent.
And unlike professional support, the dogs were with me all the time. They superimposed their routines onto my autistic one until they became the same thing. They made me exercise at regular hours, take the time to observe minute details in nature, and have happy conversations with other dog carers.
Perhaps even more importantly, they gave me the freedom to communicate nonverbally, which, until this moment in time, I’d never realised I needed. For even while I am highly verbal, it’s still a conscious and often difficult effort for me to speak with and understand you. While I talked to the dogs in the words they had learned, they were in constant dialogue with me through their body language, daily rhythms of sleep and activity, wholehearted joys, and their zen-like focus on the present moment. It was calming and effortless.
Learning to sit with the emptiness
One of the hardest things about losing this particular dog is that she was alongside me while I rebuilt my life in a new and unfamiliar city after a bunch of really bad things happened in the last place I lived. She travelled across three states with me and endured two house moves with trust. We explored our new environment and discovered special places together. For the longest time, it was just the two of us. After years of hard work, I only just got a job better than anything I could have ever imagined. She died in the same week I signed my contract – just when I would have been confident in us both having a good life.
I have support. The practitioners who work with me somehow found time to see me in the week my dog died. Several people have shed tears over her. I told my dog’s vet about my needs and she was beside me through every step of the terrible decision-making process. Having been traumatised by not having that support before, I am grateful for it and feel as much at peace with it as I can be. But even though you know you may have the entirely unmerited power to consent to the death of your companion, nothing can ever prepare you for using it when it’s time.
My dog died in my lap while I stroked her fur and talked to her. Afterwards, I could not let her go until her vet came to gently separate us.
Maybe I should now feel the freedom to abandon my autistic routine or take the opportunity to go on an adventure to some place where dogs aren’t allowed. But all I can do is sit with the emptiness of a home that was the only place I didn’t have to ‘be Meaghan’.
In one of his TV shows, Professor Brian Cox says – with an entirely different meaning that I’m deliberately misinterpreting – ‘We are the cosmos made conscious.’ If that is so, then maybe an insignificant part of an apparently uncaring universe can weep over a little dog.
Image credit: Kristen Lee on Unsplash
* I know pets are also surrendered to shelters by people who are neither stupid nor cruel. This was not the case with my dogs.
Meaghan, your blog will soon be added to our Actually Autistic Blogs List (https://anautismobserver.wordpress.com/). Please click here (or on the “How do you want your blog listed?” link at the top of that site) to customize your blog’s description on the list (or to decline).
Thank you.
Judy (An Autism Observer)
Thank you so much Judy – so happy to be included!