Maddie at 3.

One of the great programs that has really helped kids on the spectrum is called equine therapy. Many autistic children struggle to connect with people and the world around them, but when they get on a horse, they come more out of their shell. It’s a wonderful program that people are always mentioning to me, because your local TV news is constantly using it as their feel-good story of the day. The problem for my family is that it would never work for Maddie.

Maddie likes people. Sure too many of them can bother her, but as her Happy Monday Maddie-self demonstrates, she likes to be around them. She does not like animals, though. Take  her to the zoo and the highlight will be the car ride down and back. There is no way we could try equine therapy with her because not only does she not connect with animals, but she seems to suffer from the same exact allergic reactions as her Mother.

On one of the first dates I ever took Susan I thought I would be smooth and set up a carriage ride downtown. Well that did not work well. Come to find out she’s deathly allergic to horses. The rest of the date she spent sneezing and she felt miserable. Sexytime! You live, you learn. Sing it Alanis. You Learn.

My favorite story on this subject is that the 2 of us went to St. Louis for a weekend of romance and we kicked it off by taking a tour of the Anheuser Busch factory. Well let me state that Susan has no allergies to beer. Barley and Hops are her friend. So things are off to a great start when we decide to go check out the Clydesdale stables. Not a good decision. Susan didn’t touch or pet one of these animals, she just looked at them from a safe distance. (Kind of like how she is with me.) Well, even from that distance, she started to have serious problems soon. Within an hour her eyes were swollen shut. They were so bad that the only way she could have seen out of them is if Burgess Meredith was her cut-man.

So we aren’t going to give the equine therapy a try with Maddie. We did get a dog before Maddie was born, though. His name is Angus and he was a rescue dog. We went into the Animal Rescue League looking at another dog, but the way he looked at me, I knew I couldn’t leave him. He wasn’t a puppy and he’d been there for awhile, so his bill was about to come due. I guess I’m a sucker for underdog stories and everyone there told us he was great with kids who came there. Bingo. That was our most important factor, so we brought him home.

We figured that Maddie would soon come to love him just like we did, but it just never happened. Angus is sweet and gentle, but he has a loud-ass bark that is the worst thing ever to Maddie. We are always trying to beat someone to the door when we see them out the window, because we are afraid the doorbell will set off a Mousetrap game which starts with him barking like a lunatic and ending with Maddie in a 10 minute meltdown. It’s gotten a little better, but she still holds her hands tightly over her ears when he does bark. They are kind of like new step-sisters, still learning to tolerate each other.

Here’s the best story I have about Maddie and Angus. Check out the video.