COWBOY AND WILLS

By Monica Holloway

I’m a mother, I’m not an expert, but I saw with my own eyes what a remarkable animal did for my autistic son. I’m a great believer in pet therapy.

Having said that, I don’t believe that a pet companion is right for every family. If the parents do not want a dog (or any animal for that matter) or if someone in the family is allergic, it might not be the right choice for your family.

You are not a bad parent if you don’t want an animal in your home. There might be an organization in your area where your child can work with animals outside the home—such as equestrian therapy. For me, I didn’t mind the mess and the chaos, but there was plenty of both.

When my son, Wills, was three years old, he was diagnosed with autism, but he didn’t know that. So that afternoon, he happily played Green Ball in Bush, a game he’d invented. My reaction? I bought fish and then hamsters, and then a rabbit, and then more hamsters and ten hermit crabs and a land turtle and dumpy frogs. In my desperation to avoid the reality of what my son’s diagnosis might mean for his future – and ours – I began filling our house with scaly and fluffy creatures who were more dependent, but less scared, than I was.

What I couldn’t have known at the time was that one of those animals would become the one true friend that would raise my son’s confidence, elicit his very first belly laugh, and have other children clamoring to play with him.

Cowboy, a light blonde, brown-eyed golden retriever, changed my son’s life beginning with the first time he saw her at the pet store. As the clerk handed her to Wills, she looked sleepy with those irresistible droopy brown eyes, her blonde hair as fragile and fluffy as new grass.

“Is that your dog?” another shopper asked Wills. I instinctively stepped forward to rescue him from the awkwardness of talking to a stranger, but I didn’t need to.

“Yes,” he told her, turning so she could see Cowboy’s face.

“She’s a cutie.”

“She sure is,” the woman said.

And that was the beginning of the shift—the Cowboy miracle. It was so small that nobody in the store would have noticed it.

But to me, it was extraordinary.

This woman, a complete stranger, patted Wills’ shoulder—and he didn’t bristle or bolt out of the front door in an absolute panic. (He did not like to be touched by strangers.) Instead, he just stood there, staring at us with a shy, “what do you know?” smile. Somehow, with this tiny heart beating next to his, Wills had stepped a little further into the world.

Over the next two-and-a-half years, my son began sleeping in his own bed, conjuring up the confidence to give reports on volcanoes or red-tailed hawks in front of his class, sitting in a restaurant, tolerating a doctor’s visit without a melt down, as well as learning to juggle a long list of play date proposals – none of which he’d been capable of doing before Cowboy.

It wasn’t just the dog, of course. We’d provided him with a substantial team of therapists who improved his social skills, reduced his fine and gross motor delays, and tackled his visual processing problems.

The marvel was that he didn’t begin improving until Cowboy went to all those places with him – if not in person (although that was often the case) – then as a photograph, sometimes crumpled into his button-down corduroy pocket, or as a stuffed-animal-version with black, polished eyes clutched in his small, sweaty fist. Having Cowboy there gave Wills the courage to try.

When Wills was anxious or sad about something, he confided in Cowboy. Sometimes I’d hear him in his room or the backyard telling Cowboy all of his troubles. He found a great deal of relief in getting his troubles off his chest, but confiding in a person was nearly impossible. Cowboy was different. She didn’t offer solutions. She just listened, and there was no one he was closer to than Cowboy.

When Cowboy became ill with Canine Lupus, a fatal disease for dogs, Wills’ empathy presented itself. He and I spent over an hour making a list of things that would make Cowboy happy. He cooked her hot dogs or scrambled eggs, built a wooden ramp so she could climb up onto his bed, and cut up old t-shirts to make her an extra soft pillow, which he sewed together with large, loopy stitches and stuffed with paper towels so that Cowboy would have a cushion for her head.

Cowboy only lived a short time but her passing, as horrible and sad as it was, created another first for Wills. He went to school the day after she died and sat in the morning circle and allowed the children to comfort him with hugs and stories about what they remembered about Cowboy.

When I picked him up that afternoon, he walked into the school yard surrounded by children who had known Cowboy her entire life, too. His friend Sacha had her arms wrapped around his shoulders. Wills had turned to people —his peers—for the first time in his life.

He did get a new golden retriever, Buddy Rose, but he doesn’t need her to negotiate his way in the world. As beloved as Buddy is, Cowboy had already worked her magic. Buddy is his pal, his playmate who goes everywhere with us, but Wills does not need her to calm his anxieties. For that, we’ll always be grateful to our Cowboy.

Cowboy & Wills opens the day after Holloway’s adorable three year-old son Wills is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Holloway’s new memoir shares profoundly powerful and poignant stories with unfettered candor, balanced by an uplifting wit that provided needed relief from the seemingly insurmountable difficulties she overcomes time and again. To call Holloway an inspiration would be an understatement.

Monica Holloway is the critically acclaimed author of Driving With Dead People, a book that Newsweek called “unforgettable,” Glamour christened “a classic,” and theWashington Post deemed “irresistible.” A contributor to the anthologies Mommy Warsand the Bigger the Better the Tighter the Sweater, Holloway lives with her family in Los Angeles. www.monicaholloway.com