Leah's Latest

As many of you may remember, many of you may not, this blog all began in an effort to keep people in the loop of what it was like when we were acquiring a service dog for Leah. Then the blog morphed into a family blog, then an adoption blog, then a "catch-all" blog! Kinda like a newspaper with no direction! Yeah, that's it!

Well, I wanted to take the blog back to it's roots and give you an update on Riley and Leah. Fun, eh?

Riley passed all of his CGC (Canine Good Citizen) and Service Dog tests without fail...I still say the most difficult ones were having a wheelchair intentionally run over his puffy white tail without him moving and then him having to lay next to a nice, piping hot plate of food without creeping closer to it or sniffing it! Can your dog do that?! Riley can! Then Riley went to school with Leah, using all of his Autism Assistance Dog skills that he was trained for, for over a year. During that year, Leah continued to have sensory defensiveness (didn't like the feel of) toward his fur or his wet nose or his scratchy paws. Leah just has never liked the fact that Riley is an unpredictable creature...not to mention that he feels funny too!!!

Within the same year, we initiated a very intense home ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) program with Leah. This is just good old teaching with very specific objectives. But it's very intense...up to 4 hours a day in our home as well as going to preschool! Well, let me tell you something...ABA works...and Leah doesn't need the assistance of her assistance dog anymore!!! We still take him out with us so his skills are kept in tact, but with the intense work that she's done for 9 months, we've relinquished the use of Riley at school for her and she is doing AWESOME!!! Her language is moving in the right direction, her play and social skills are increasing...she's becoming more typical each day! The Doctors that we work with out of Kalamazoo actually have questioned us if she really has autism!!! That's a lot of work, if you know how she was when we started all of this therapy!

One thing that I said I would always hesitate to do is to take Leah to a DAN Doctor. For all of you non-autism people, a DAN is a Defeat Autism Now! Doctor. This doctor believes that he/she can treat autism biomedically. I don't believe that it can be completely treated nor (obviously) cured, but I wold like to look into some of the aspects of the treatments. The reason: I always said I would consider a DAN if Leah hit a plateau. I feel she has hit a plateau in her sensory needs and eye contact...she shy's away from looking at people and she is constantly on the move and wiggling as well as banging her hands and fluffing stuff! This has been since the day she could sit up...and she's 4 1/2 now...that's a plateau if I've ever been on one! So, I'm not looking to make miracles...but I need to look behind a door that I just haven't opened for her!

Overall, Leah has made tremendous developmental growth. She is a beautiful, happy and talkative girl! She loves music, dancing, her sister...and of course suckers! She's an amazing piece of this family. Our family just wouldn't be as happy and full without all of the special things she brings to us each and every moment that she does! Someone asked me a long time ago if I wish she didn't have autism or I regret the situation. My answer: NOPE! If Leah didn't have autism, she wouldn't be the Leah we know and love and kiss and cuddle and are learning right along side of!!! Thank God for Leah!