By Sherri Goodall

When you look into Chris Borden’s steady, engaging, clear blue eyes, you would never guess that nine years ago his entire world had shrunk to the small confines of his bedroom. At 12 years old, Chris could no longer attend school, go to church, go out to dinner, play with other kids, or participate in any other social activities we all take for granted.
Chris has Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Briefly, children with ASD show deficits in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, unusual sensory experiences and repetitive behaviors.

Sitting at Chris’s side is Morgan, a 10-year-old German Shepherd dog.
Her ears stand alert; her eyes focus steadily on Chris, reading his every emotion. She is Chris’s connection to the outside world. Morgan and Chris were partnered in 2003. Since then, Chris is now attending college, interacts with people with a direct gaze (often, people with autism do not make direct eye contact) and converses in an engaging manner. He even speaks to groups of several hundred people about autism with Morgan at his side.

Today is just another miracle, according to Chris’ mother, Janet Borden, as has been every day since Chris first met Morgan. Before Morgan, Janet tried numerous doctors, therapies and medications, but Chris’ condition only worsened. By the time he was 13, Chris was having multiple panic attacks a day and enduring cruel bullying by kids at school. Janet took Chris out of school and decided to home school him. Chris’s condition deteriorated.

It wasn’t until Janet heard about service dogs for children with autism-related disorders that Chris’ life began to change for the better. In 2003, Morgan came to Tulsa with a trainer from a nonprofit support group, which no longer exists. The Bordens made a $2,500 contribution to the support group in order to get Morgan and her trainer. The trainer actually lived with the Bordens for 10 days during which no one but Chris was allowed to interact with the dog. In one week’s time, the Bordens were going to restaurants, malls, church, and other activities outside the home.

Of course, Morgan was by Chris’s side. After the 10 days, Janet found K9 Manners & More and Mary Green. Mary was able to continue Morgan’s training with Chris. Training requirements for autism dogs are different from dogs that assist with physical disabilities. Autismtrained dogs must be solid around people and especially sensitive to their owner’s emotional health. They must sense trouble before it begins, and then be able to assist with or prevent panic and anxiety attacks.
As a result of Chris’ progress, High Aim Assistance Dogs was founded by Janet Borden, Mary Green and Kim Sykes. Lisa Bycroft came on board in 2010. Large numbers of children are diagnosed every year with ASD. Obviously, there is a great need for these specifically trained canines.

Currently, there are four dogs in training at High Aim, and 11 applicants waiting for them. Each dog costs $10,000 to train over a period of two years. The goal of High Aim is to provide each dog free of charge to its clients. High Aim thrives on gifts, donated items and fundraisers. The organization is always looking for volunteers, trainers and puppy sitters. Meet Tedward, a magnificent yellow lab in training for High Aim. He was very busy trying to wow Morgan, who politely ignored him. He rested his giant head on his trainer’s foot, another way of “checking in” with his person. Dr. Stacey Ludlow is Tedward’s trainer. They’ve been together for several months. Stacey is a pediatrician and on the High Aim board. Tedward is learning the basics of obedience, plus High Aim skills and tasks training. They go to classes twice a week. One day soon, he’ll be ready to meet his person/partner.

How can a dog redirect someone’s life that is beset by social interactions that cause panic attacks? One of the first, and most important, tasks Morgan learned With this command, Morgan put her paws in Chris’s lap and leaned inward, putting comforting pressure on Chris until the panic attack subsided. In “Lap up,” the dog climbs completely onto the lap, covering the person with his weight, similar to a weighted vest which is used to allay panic or anxiety attacks in children.

Morgan can sense a panic attack before it occurs, and she will signal Chris by nose flipping his hand, lapping up, pacing around him and/or staring at him with a “hard” face. This alerts Chris to do a brain check. This “brain check” causes Chris to rethink his thought patterns to interrupt the anxiety/panic attack. Morgan has remediated many of Chris’s autistic behavior patterns over the years, so that many of her “tasks” are unnecessary now.

Some of Morgan’s (and other dogs in High Aim Assistant training) tasks include:

CHECKING IN Checking in is one of the dog’s most important tasks. Morgan does this often with Chris to check his thoughts. If she senses anxious thoughts or patterns of sensory overload, she’ll get Chris’s attention to get him to redirect his thoughts.

MAKE FRIENDS When Chris asks Morgan to “make friends,” she’ll hold out her paw to shake hands. This allows Chris to ease into social interaction with other people.

NO VISIT This is the opposite of “make friends.” It tells Morgan to ignore approaching people. There are times when it is inappropriate to interact with a service dog or its owner.

BOUNDARIES Chris uses subtle hand gestures to move Morgan into a body block that places her between him and the public. This allows Chris to maintain his personal space. Morgan often anticipates this task and moves herself between Chris and whoever is approaching him.

WIDEN PERSONAL SPACE Morgan is trained to walk slightly ahead of, and around, Chris in wide circles. This prevents sensory overload, so people don’t get too close unless invited. Personal space issues are critical to people like Chris. (When I first met Chris and Morgan, I asked if I could pet Morgan. I sensed that there was a “boundary” around Chris that I shouldn’t cross without permission.)

WHERE IS CHRIS OR WHERE ‘S ______?
This is Morgan’s command to go find Chris when she’s not with him, or to go find someone else upon Chris’s command.

REALI TY CHE CK/REFOCUS The dog is trained to sit or lie beside the handler and allow him to twirl or stroke fur to assist with anxiety, intrusive thoughts and distractibility. Repetitive behavior can be redirected with this task.

All of us that are pet owners know this other dimension of emotional sensitivity between our pets and ourselves. How often is it that we know they sense our discomfort, sadness or anxiety? They’ll come and lay down by our sides, or stick their noses into our hands. I’ve noticed my Westies staring at me with such intensity during stressful times, as if to say… “OK, snap out of it – now!” With such a meaningful and critical goal embraced by High Aim Assistance Dogs, hopefully the needs of so many kids with autism-related disorders will be met.

For more information, and to find out how you can help, visit www.HighAim.org.

By Sheri Goodall

If anyone knows about the dog/human connection, it’s Susan Phariss, founder of Therapetics in the 1990s, which trains service dogs for physically challenged people. She worked primarily with Retrievers and Labradoodles.

She has since left Therapetics and founded Brain Fitness Strategies, a company that uses Rhythmic Movement Training (RMT) as a foundation for advancing brain function and neuromuscular brain development. And, dogs help achieve the program’s goals. The Phariss canine team is Sassy and Gracie, both Standard Poodles, who make up the Animal Assisted Therapy component. Studies have shown that contact with animals lowers stress, anxiety, improves focus and raises brain function. Susan and her husband, Paul, are among a small number of people in the U.S. certified to practice RMT.

About RMT
The exercise program is based on movements that infants make in their first year of life. The rocking motions, lifting of the head, rolling over, putting things in the mouth, crawling, etc. are all part of the baby’s primitive reflexes. By age 3, most of the primitive reflexes are “finished,”‘ allowing the adult postural reflexes to kick in. Sometimes babies skip one or more of these developmental milestones, which causes problems later in life. Adults who have suffered strokes and brain trauma revert to some of the primitive reflexes that inhibit normal brain development and function, leaving them impaired.
An outcome of RMT is improved reading abilities of learning and emotionally challenged kids with issues such as ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, cerebral palsy, and autism. RMT improves brain development to improve written and spoken language in school-age children.

Dr. Harold Blomberg, a Swedish psychiatrist, discovered RMT more than 25 years ago. The program has been successful in treating children and adults with learning and developmental disabilities.

The Bixby Project
Last year, Bixby Public Schools collaborated with Brain Fitness Strategies for a study on the benefits of RMT. Melissa Lytle, special education teacher, reported a 208 percent improvement in reading scores over the control group who did not receive the RMT training.
A reward aspect of the study involved Gracie and Sassy coming to school and interacting with (rewarding) the fifth graders in the study.
One student refused to come out from under a blanket. He kicked, screamed, and basically disrupted the class. Susan and Paul worked with him, using passive exercises. They held and rocked him. (Babies calm themselves through rocking.) After RMT exercise once weekly for five weeks, the boy began interacting in an acceptable manner with classmates. Sassy and Gracie helped reduce the child’s stress and build his confidence. Both dogs were selected and trained to be doggy therapists. Standard Poodles are hypoallergenic, working well with people with immune problems and allergies. The dogs have traveled extensively with the Pharisses, entertaining kids with their antics during school assemblies about friendship skills and positive reinforcement.

The dogs have also promoted the Summer Reading Program in Oklahoma libraries for years. Susan says that getting to work one-on-one with the kids “makes both dogs and kids wag their tails.” The dogs did not become members of the Pharris family at the same time.
Sassy was left behind in a rented house when the people moved and the Pharisses came to her rescue. She had recently had puppies, her coat was badly matted and she was in poor condition.
A groomer shaved her and found infected skin under the mats. “She was tolerant of the shaving, which was hard on her inflamed skin,” Susan recalls. “A week later, she had wormed her way into our hearts and moved into the house with us. We fed, groomed and loved her until she recovered from the emotional and physical trauma of being abandoned.” Poodle Gracie came from a Colorado breeder, after the couple unsuccessfully searched for this kind of dog from Standard Poodle rescue organizations.

How RMT Works
Meet Seth Meyer, age 9, one of Susan and Paul’s’ star students. Seth enters the room in a burst of energy, his dark eyes searching for Sassy and Gracie. The dogs greet him with a flurry of tail wags and kisses.
“Let’s play,” Seth shouts. He grabs a hoop, some balls and toys. Sassy and Gracie leap through the hoop and scramble for the toys and balls. Just holding the hoop still and throwing the toys is an achievement for Seth.

Six months ago, he did not have the hand-eye coordination to hold the hoop steady for the dogs to leap and could not throw the toys. Additionally, Sassy and Gracie are there to bring calm to anxious children. On a floor mat, Seth rocks on his hands and knees for a few minutes “Let’s do the bunny,” Susan says. Seth hops forward like a bunny. Then he stretches out on his back and scoots backwards using his legs to push. Susan grabs a pillow for his head.

“Okay, how many times can you lift your head up and down?” Seth lifts his head up and down at least a dozen times. After he rolls up and down the mat in a rhythmic pattern, he races to Gracie and Sassy for rewarding licks, wags, and playtime. Developmentally challenged children cannot perform these simple actions easily. Their primitive reflexes haven’t “finished” and their brains lack the neural pathways necessary to carry these messages. Six months ago Seth could not lift his head from the pillow without raising his entire torso. When he got on his hands and knees, his legs and hands splayed out. He couldn’t roll over repeatedly, and he couldn’t scoot on his back at all.

Through RMT training, he learned to do all of this, plus track with his eyes without moving his head and converge images (both eyes converge when seeing one image; before, Seth saw two of everything).
His reading and learning skills have improved dramatically, along with his behavior.

For info:
www.BrainfitnessStrategies.com

By SHERRI GOODALL

“Where ‘s Taz?,” we asked at the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary in Tasmania. We were looking for the Tasmanian devil, better known as Taz, the Looney Tunes character.

This not-so-adorable bulldog-sized critter, which looks like a cross between a small bear and a large rodent, is in trouble. A mouth disease has caused nearly 80% of the devils to die and the Australian government has put the devil on its endangered species list.

Tasmania, an island off south Australia, is the only place where devils live in the wild. When we visited at the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, the handler entered the fenced habitat holding a pole with a slab of raw meat on the end. From behind trees and under rocks and bushes, devils raced out, snapping and screeching. They were hungry! One big one snatched the meal and ducked behind a bush. With deafening shrieks and growls, the devils began tug-of-war with the meat. Devils get their name from the ear-splitting noises they make when fighting over food or each other. The Devils’ jaws have the same bite pressure as a lion and, like hyenas, their favorite meal is carcasses — bones and all.

If you’ve watched dogs at play, you’ve seen them “mouth wrestle.” Similarly, devils nip and nibble at each other’s faces, spreading the deadly mouth disease.

Australians and Tasmanians are concerned about survival of the animals, because, if the mouth disease is not treated and contained, devils could be extinct by 2025. Scientists, biologists, inventors, and the governments of Australia and Tasmania are working together to save Taz.

Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary is just one of several centers housing
“insurance” colonies of healthy devils. Within the last two years, farmers have reported seeing Tasmanian devils in remote areas of the island where there were no known colonies.

Why is this exciting news?
Researchers are finding new colonies to be disease-free, where adults and joeys (babies) are thriving in the wild. This is like hitting the jackpot for Taz. Special cameras and recorders are used by researchers to document the nocturnal animals eating, fighting, and routinely making a ruckus in the middle of the night. But, capturing devils for testing is not easy, as they are smart and quickly become suspicious of the bait used for trapping.

Nick Mooney, a wildlife biologist, invented a trap made of a large PVC pipe sealed at one end with a trap door at the other end. By patiently placing bait closer to the pipe trap daily, researchers are able to lure the devils into the traps. Mr. Mooney’s creative trap received the “People’s Choice Award” on ABC TV’s New Inventors program.

Now what?
Australians voted Dr. Katherine Belov, of Sydney University, their favorite scientist in 2009 for her teamwork with fellow researchers at the University of Tasmania, monitoring and testing the new colonies. “There is hope now for saving the Tasmanian devil,” Belov says.

Belov and other researchers established “insurance” colonies of healthy devils on mainland Australia. There are approximately 19 sanctuaries and zoos on the mainland, plus the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary in Tasmania.

So far about 300 healthy devil pairs have produced about 60 joeys. The goal is to eventually re-populate Tasmania with healthy animals.
Work is underway to develop to protect the animals against the fatal mouth disease. Additionally, free range enclosures are being built in Tasmania as natural habitats for the animals to live and reproduce, protected from a diseased population. Much work needs to be done, but things are definitely looking up for Taz.

Devils in the Down Under
Tasmanian devils are marsupials. The mothers carry their newborn joeys in a pouch. Australia and Tasmania are home to most of the world’s marsupials, including kangaroos, koalas, wallabies and wombats.

When I walked into Pooches, I stopped dead in my tracks. There before me, with a crowd gathered around, stood the oddest looking dog I had ever seen. The others obviously thought so too, judging by their stares of amazement.

Either this dog’s designer had gone bonkers, or the Great One had played a really cruel joke.

A gorgeous Rhodesian Ridgeback head crowned this dog…golden eyes with black markings on a great golden head attached to the body of a…Basset Hound– stumpy legs, turned out feet, and that looooong low –to- the- ground body. What a sight.

The owners had named him Arnold, saying they thought it was quite fitting.

Arnold was delirious with joy at all the attention and ran around trying to kiss and jump on everyone.

This strange looking canine hit the jackpot when he wan- dered into Jean and Jack Watkins’ yard. Jean is one of the founders of PAL, Pet Adoption League. Jean said she thought his head looked like a randomly attached spare part. Poor Arnold looked hor- rible; bone thin, ribs stickingout, missing clumps of hair and a sore on his head that looked as if it came from a BB gun, and he was limping. By the time they got to him down the street, he had collapsed. Jack went back to their house and got his pick-up to take Arnold back home.

A sweeter disposition would be hard to find; Arnold seemed ever grateful to have been dis- covered. He was exhausted and hungry. The inside of the house seemed foreign to Arnold. He probably had never been allowed in one. Every time Jean brought him in the house, he would run back outside. So, for the first few nights Arnold slept on a quilt on the covered patio, and seemed thrilled to do so.

When Arnold went to the vet for his shots, the Dr. said it looked like Arnold had a run-in with a car leaving him with a severely dislocated hip. Eventually he’d need surgery.

So, BB gun, hit and run, malnourished and not exactly a candidate for the Gold Standard of Canine Beauty, Jean was having second thoughts about adopting out this dog. He also needed an appointment to be neutered. Arnold finally accepted the inside of the house, but Jeanwas afraid he’d mark everything until his neutering appointment. To her great surprise, Arnold slept on a quilt by their bed and never did a thing in the house, or for that matter in the yard. It was only on walks with Jack that Arnold would do his business. It was almost as if he wouldn’t dare soil his new digs, inside or out. The Watkins finally bought a “pee post” so Arnold would use the yard.

The Saturday after they found Arnold, the Watkins went out to do errands. Arnold was left in the backyard. When they got back about an hour later, Jean’s sister was at the house.

“Arnold must have a twin. When I got here, there was a weird looking dog exactly like Arnold sitting on your porch,” she said.

“Impossible, “Jean said. “There he is on the patio.”

However, when they went out back to the yard, they found a huge hole chewed in the bottom of the gate—Arnold had apparently escaped but decided that this was a pretty good place to live, so he came back and there he was, grinning on the patio.

Over a period of a few days, Jean noticed something else about Arnold: he had majorseparation anxiety, especially from Jack. So add separation anxiety to BB gun, hit and run, malnourished, and not exactly a can- didate for the Gold Standard of Canine Beauty.

The odds of Arnold being adoptable had grown to about 99 to 1, against.

Arnold is now a permanent member of the Watkins family. Hopefully they will have many more Christmases together.

BY SHERRI GOODALL

It was a dark and stormy night …not really, but it was a dark and stormy day– July 9th. A rather unexceptional day except it was my birthday. And, I was a bit depressed, what with the weather and the thought that another 365 days had zipped by without so much as a goodbye.

I finished some errands and got in my car when I saw a big brown and black dog lope across the parking lot at 81st and Harvard. Just as I saw him, another lady got out of her car, running after the dog. I shouted, “Is he yours?” She answered, “No, I found him running on 81st St.”

We tried to coax him to us, but the dog took off towards Harvard, and to our horror ran across the street, narrowly missing two cars that screeched to a halt. We followed the dog into the alley of the shopping center across Harvard. Both of us parked our cars so the dog couldn’t get out. He was terrified, exhausted and in bad need of water. His eyes showed signs of cataracts. This Airedale was no youngster, and definitely not used to being on the street. While I was holding him so the other gal could write down the phone number on his tag, I looked up, lo and behold, we were right behind a vet’s office! We walked the dog in and he collapsed on the floor. “Please, bring this dog water,” I begged. “Kipper” lapped up the water in huge gulps. I thought we would lose him to heat exhaustion.

The vet said they couldn’t keep him without knowing if he had vaccinations. The kind lady (whose name I did not get) called the number and finally reached someone else at another number left on the answering machine. This person said he was a neighbor of the owners, that they had just moved to Tulsa and he thought the dog was terrified of storms. (Remember, it was a dark and stormy day…) He told us he would try to reach the owner and call back.

While we sat there anxiously waiting for a callback–seemed like hours– a woman came running in the door holding a bedraggled looking terrier. She had just found this dog running down 81st St. This is getting strange, I thought. The vet tech looked at this dog’s collar, and guess what…it was the same phone number! We were in shock.

The little dog, Gidget, ran over to the big one, and they wagged and grinned, so happy to see each other.

What are the odds that within 20 minutes, two dogs from the same owner would be brought into the same vet, both nearly being run over? Just about that time, the vet’s phone rang. It was the hysterical owner, saying “Would you happen to have two dogs? We just moved here, and my dogs are terrified of storms!”

All three of us burst out in tears. This was miraculous!

“Guess what?” I said. “Today is my birthday.”

By the way, the lady that saved Gidget…her name is Shari, like me. Remember the Twilight Zone? A little music please, “do do do do… do do do do.”

A big thank you to Shari, and my partner whose name I still don’t know, and the veterinary staff at All Creatures. I couldn’t ask for a better birthday present. This made my day, actually the whole year!

Sherri Goodall
p.s. As it turns out, Kipper must be part cat, because he had way more than a couple lives. He was originally found at a flea market after being shot!