More awesome ways the dog will help Atticus

So the dog will be trained to go anywhere and everywhere with us. In fact, we have to take a public access TEST before we are able to take him out in public. This shows that we are certified to handle the dog and that the dog has been fully trained to be in public. There will be lecture classes, hands on training and tests that we will take during our 7 days of training camp.

Legally a service dog is allowed in any location or place of business. The only places that can legally refuse entry are a personal residence or a religious organization. Our dog will be outfitted with a special jacket and harness showing he is a certified service dog. We are hoping we don't encounter any issues with taking him wherever Atticus goes.

Here are some more awesome ways the dog can help Atticus... In group situations Atticus gets overwhelmed sometimes and the dog will be there to comfort him. In just one command you can instruct the dog to ignore all other children. You can also instruct him to comfort and love on Atticus, give him hugs, shake his hand, anything that might put our little man at ease. In addition you can instruct the dog to play with other children, encouraging Atticus to interact with them as well.

Atticus also has a great deal of sensory issues and the dog can help comfort him when he becomes overloaded. His body can't handle all of the different sensory input (think sounds, touch, sights, etc.). This often happens at bedtime and our bedtimes can sometime  2 hours. And please believe me when I say we have tried everything. You name it we've tried it over the past 6 years. And i must say it has really gotten better and he has improved greatly when it comes to getting settled down. I remember times in the past where he would be awake from 1 a.m. - 5 a.m. and you couldn't leave him in his room to fall back asleep. He would climb and fall and get into trouble if left unattended for even a few minutes. Thankfully, now we are able to settle down him down and get him to sleep in less than two hours, usually 1 on a good night. My amazing and incredible husband usually takes bedtime duty. We're hoping that maybe the dog will help Atticus settle down and maybe we can slowly fade our presence out of the room and he will be able to go to sleep on his own.

There are many other ways the dog will be able to help, we will continue to post those as well as other tidbits of information about our special friend as they are made available to us.

As always - thank you for reading and God bless!