The Diagnosis

In April of 2015, at the age of 16 months, with a list of odd behaviors I started doing some research and seeking advice from a variety of sources.  I spoke to the breeder regularly as we are good friends, I contacted a behaviorist that I had used with Porter and had great success with, I contacted different friends around the world that may have some ideas, I spoke to a few veterinarians and I spoke to experts in the holistic field.  The general consensus was that Sniper was indeed different but nobody could quite put their finger on what exactly made him different.  I got lots of advice on how to fix specific issues from the list of things but nothing that would help the big picture.

Along my journey of talking to people, I get referred to a veterinarian with Slice to help deal with a concussion issue as well as some "athlete" rehab needed before heading away to Europe to compete.  The day Jodie and I reconnected will go down in history as a life changing moment for my whole family.  She worked on Slice and during our visit we started talking about how her veterinarian practice was now including holistic alternatives to conventional treatments the majority of us are familiar with.  Making a long story much shorter, we started to talk about Sniper and some of the "issues" was looking for help with.  Jodie thought she might be able to help and we scheduled a time for her to work on him.  I knew I would have to have my whole list of issues in hand at our appointment to get the most benefit of our time together so rather than remember everything down it went on paper.

THE LIST

1. Sniper avoids new experiences or situations

2. Sniper has a drastic flight/panic response

3. Sniper chooses not to interact with people/dogs

4. Sniper enjoys being with and entertaining himself

5. Sniper displays many OCD behaviors

6. Sniper recoils from human touch as if it burns him

7. Sniper randomly fear barks when nothing appears to be going on

8.  Sniper wakes from a dead sleep in a panic

9. Sniper trances 

10. Sniper avoids eye contact

11.  Sniper does not like any changes out of the norm, it causes anxiety

12.  Sniper has panic attacks

13.  Sniper starting to display separation anxiety
14.  Sniper continues to have accidents in the house or crate

The list was thorough and I had many examples for each point on the list to identify that they weren't just one time occurrences.  Jodie did a full overall exam of Sniper and brought up the possibility of Sniper having Canine Autism.  At first I think she thought I wouldn't believe her or think the idea was so far fetched but as soon as she said the words I thought, "well that makes sense".  I had never heard of a dog being autistic but it didn't mean it wasn't possible.  So I sat on the information for a week and started doing some research.  I spoke to a few of my closest dog friends and they all gave me a list of agility people they knew or had heard of whose dogs where autistic.  Who knew?  The names I heard amazed me.  These are trainers and dogs I compete with at an international level and the dogs are brilliant.  I was even more encouraged now that with proper protocol going forward Sniper was going to flourish.  Once I had a better grasp and what all this meant, I started to refine our routines and figure out all the things I could do to help Sniper.

Everything was going to be ok.