I had a black and white tuxedo cat that was legendary mean. Legendary. His vet record had multiple red X’s on it for ‘mean cat, use gloves and restraints’. It was a one person cat. Mine. I warned everyone who visited to give him a wide berth. Wasn’t difficult as he avoided strangers as well.
We’ve got friends who have a moderately autistic son. Non verbal but receptive language is better than most. When they visited with the kid the first time, I warned them all about the mean cat. And the ASD kid nodded his head ‘yes’ to show he understood not to try to pet the kitty.
This mean cat walked over to the kid (he never ever approached anyone but me, btw) and head butted him for a head scratch. We were dumbfounded. This cat sat there next to the kid for 10m at least getting all sorts of head scratching (clumsy head scratching) and purred and acted a cat fool.
Never did that before or since for anyone else.
This dog ‘knows’ Sarah’s son and is aware, in an animal sense, that this kid isn’t ‘just like’ all the rest. He likely tolerates a good deal more from Sarah’s youngest than he would from any of her other kids or gkids.
JMHO.
This particular cat of mine had a brain tumor and we had to put him down. I knew he was getting ‘wonky’ when he did the same thing, 10 years later, with my youngest child.
Animals are pretty amazing and can sense things quite well. I have never raised a child with downs syndrome so perhaps it’s different with them.
My Aunt’s little dog shocked me as my son had only reached out to pet the dog and boom, it snatched hold of his thumb and didn’t want to let go, the mean little dog was sitting on my Uncles lap. They wouldn’t put the dog up after —so we left. (years and years ago)
I guess that incident left me a little shell shocked. A dog with food is just something I’ve done because my parents raised me with the same rule.
With horses I am careful about walking behind them because I had a kicker. Ha! My dad would put a I’m a KIKKer (radio station) sticker around her tail when I was participating in events (western).
I use my dogs as foot stools and as a pillow on occasions. One of my Boxers is such a stubborn arse that she pretty much plays dead when you want her to move— you can push and scoot her all around and she just lays there—works great! :D She is also a turd and will sit on my other dogs head if my other dog has the spot that she wants.