Read more about the article I need to clarify something so please give this a quick read
Cats / Cleo / Family Pets / Ferrets / Maggie / My thoughts / Zane

I need to clarify something so please give this a quick read

I wanted to take a minute and do two things. First, I want to thank you all for the love and support you've shown over the past few days. We all very much appreciate it. ☺ Secondly, I feel like I need to provide some clarification in regards to the pets we've lost over the last year. Some people have expressed concern the we've had 3 animals die in under a year and at least 2 of them were cancer related. There have been suggestions that we look into our environment to make sure there isn't a reason for them having cancer. I wanted to clarify a few things and hopefully, that will provide some context that you'd be missing if you haven't been following our story for long. In…

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October 12, 2018
Read more about the article An important update on Ruby, our cute little Chorkie
Family Pets / Maggie / My thoughts / Ruby

An important update on Ruby, our cute little Chorkie

This is a short but interesting update, dealing with how Ruby is doing since Maggie passed. We've had animals pass away before and there's almost always a change in those that remain. When Cleo died last year, Blue (our only remaining cat) became much more outgoing than he'd been previously. When Maggie died a little over a week ago, Ruby didn't seem too impacted, at least in a negative way. She refused to eat at first because we had her trained that Maggie went first. It took some doing to undo that. That was really biggest thing we noticed at first. As time has passed, Ruby seems to be coming into her own. She's more relaxed and confident since she's been the only dog. When we come home, she quietly…

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April 24, 2018
Read more about the article Helping my kids deal with loss
Autism Parenting Insight / Family Pets / Maggie / My thoughts

Helping my kids deal with loss

It's been one week since Maggie passed away and we wanted to try to keep the kids distracted today. Kids with Autism are especially prone to struggling with loss and tend to benefit a great deal from distraction. Trying to process already confusing emotions is difficult and at least my kids tend to perseberate. It's been a rough seven days for most of us and it somehow seemed fitting to spend the one week anniversary of her death, outside enjoying the sun. She loved being outside and basking in the sun. Lizze and I took the boys to the park and let them explore this afternoon. Click the image below to open the gallery. [foogallery id="79085"] The boys had a great time. We all had a great time actually. Everyone…

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April 20, 2018
Read more about the article It’s funny how things work out
Family Pets / Maggie / My thoughts / Ruby

It’s funny how things work out

Tomorrow marks one week since Maggie passed away. I'm not sure if the significance of the day will strike the kids or not but I'm certainly not going to raise their attention to it. We've been preparing for awhile now that Maggie wouldn't be around forever but we had no idea how soon she would be taken. When I stumbled across Ruby a few months ago, I had no idea how important that moment would be. We would have survived Maggie's passing and eventually moved on, because that's the way life is. I will say that having Ruby a part of our lives has made the adjustment a little easier, especially for the boys. She may only be the size of my shoe but she packs a whole lot of…

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April 19, 2018
Read more about the article It’s been an emotional roller-coaster this weekend and I’m exhausted
Family Pets / Maggie / My thoughts

It’s been an emotional roller-coaster this weekend and I’m exhausted

It's been an emotional weekend for all of us here in The Autism Dad household. Losing Maggie has been devastating for all, but especially for Elliott and Emmett. They're feeling the loss a bit differently because they have basically never known a time where Maggie wasn't here. They were both so young when we got her, it seems like she was always part of our family. Lizze and I have been trying to keep the boys distracted because that helps them to move forward. Saturday was pretty rough. There was a great many tears shed throughout the day and we really tried to keep the boys occupied, but it didn't always help. On Sunday, all three of the boys hung out with their Grandparents for a large part of the…

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April 16, 2018
Read more about the article Maggie passed away last night and we’re all heartbroken
Family Pets / Heartbreak / Maggie / My thoughts

Maggie passed away last night and we’re all heartbroken

In November of 2008, Emmett was almost six months old and we were a dog-less family, not looking for a dog. In a completely random occurrence, Lizze stumbled across a picture of a dog with the most amazing smile. We weren't looking for a dog because we had just recently had Emmett but we found ourselves drawn to the picture and it turned the dog was actually somewhat local to us. Lizze wanted to go look at her in person and for whatever I went along with it. It was one of those spontaneous things that wasn't really like us at the time. There was just something about this dog and we made the forty-five minute drive to meet her in person, not knowing what to expect. What we didn't…

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April 14, 2018
Read more about the article Some sad news about our dog
Cats / Maggie / My thoughts

Some sad news about our dog

Maggie is our roughly twelve year old English Staffy. We've had her since she was two years old and she's the best dog anyone could ask for. We have so many amazing memories with her and she's a loved member of our family. Sadly, I fear we're reaching a point in time where we may have some very difficult and painful decisions to make. Maggie is almost completely blind and deaf. She got tumors in several places, including places where they've already been removed. She's becoming very difficult to manage because she doesn't respond most of the time and just wanders around aimlessly, when we take her outside to use the bathroom. Tonight, she fell down an entire flight of step, only stopping when she slammed into the fire place.…

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March 13, 2018
Read more about the article We got some sad news today
Family Pets / Maggie / My thoughts

We got some sad news today

I took Maggie to the vet this morning. She needed some vaccines before she could be boarded on Thursday, for our trip to Florida the following day. The physical appointment went well but we got some sad news. As we suspected, Maggie has begun losing her hearing. This was pretty obvious based on the fact that she doesn't respond to noise anymore. I was prepared for that, but I wasn't prepared to hear that she's losing her vision as well. The vet couldn't say how bad her vision is but her eyes are glassing over, and I guess that's not a good thing. She's never had a very good sense of smell but it's pretty much nonexistent at this point. The positive take away is that she's physically healthy. She…

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September 26, 2017