A Dog For Caden Butler Modaff

I love trains and tractors. I have a mommy who says I have beautiful blue eyes. I have a daddy who thinks I am super smart and strong and I have a sister Ryley who thinks I'm funny. I also have autism.

When I was about 15 months old I started using all of the cool words that I knew but by the time I was 18 months old I could only say 2 words. I also started lining everything up in the house and stacking whatever I could. I got really upset when anyone would touch my lines or stacks and once I have what mommy calls “a meltdown” I couldn't calm myself back down. I get frustrated very easily and don't like when my routine gets changed which is a problem because both my big sister Ryley and I have an immune deficiency called common variable immune deficiency that cause us a lot of trips to the doctor and hospital for blood work and surgeries. People outside of my house are really scary and I don't understand when they want to talk to me or touch me; I try to hide my face whenever I can. Thank goodness I have a blankie and a pacifier that I can take places with me. If I can't hide I sometimes try to run away which scares my parents because they are worried that I will get hurt or lost. I have been in speech therapy and have a lot more words now but still use a lot of gestures and pictures to communicate with people. I can only eat food in the form that I first meet it which means I still eat baby food and have trouble eating out unless they serve eggs or little pancakes which I love! I also can't sleep very well and most nights end up in my mommy and daddy's room; I have a lot of night terrors and can't go back to sleep very well on my own. I'm in a lot of other therapies and daddy says we work on a lot of things at home too; I don't mind though because mommy, daddy, and Ryley try really hard to make the work fun and I like everything except when they want me to taste or touch something icky.

After lots of tests my doctors decided I have a form of autism called PDD-NOS and some Sensory Integration problems. When I don't know what to do now I look for my blankie and pacifier or my parents. My parents have to help me a lot which is sometimes hard on my sister because my parents don't want her to have to grow up too fast or miss out on activities because they are afraid I will get too scared or upset. My mommy found out about a non profit organization, she calls it a 501c3, called 4 Paws for Ability (http://www.4pawsforability.org,). They are the first organization in the United States to train autism service dogs and what is really cool is that they understand that little kids like me can't wait until we are older so they will place dogs with any age. We applied and are very grateful that we were accepted into the program. In order for me to receive a dog, we had to raise $13,000 for 4 Paws for Ability which we finally did in August 2010, just 13 months after we began what mommy keeps calling a journey. Now we have to videotape all kinds of things about me and my life so that the trainers will know how to pick out the doggy angel that is just perfect for me, and then we'll get to go to our own training which will be tough but a lot of fun and we just can't wait.

My dog will be trained just for me. He will be trained primarily in tracking to help my family find me if I get lost or wander off, tethering which is a cool anchor system that will help keep me from bolting in public, and behavior disruption so that I can learn to calm down on my own. Daddy says this isn't a cure but it will give me another coping mechanism and that its going to really help our family. Mommy says its going to improve my quality of life and give me and my sister a chance to just be a kids.

I am now making my website a chance to share information about autism and autism safety. My mommy is also going to include lots of details about our service dog training process and how the transition home goes--stay tuned because I bet it will be exciting.

I am also really excited that we are going to start featuring children and young adults on the autism spectrum and celebrating their accomplishments---every accomplishment is a big deal in my mommy's book!   Email my mommy if you know someone we can include--a picture and a few sentences will be included on my website and on my facebook page (a service dog for Caden)--don't worry no last names or locations will be used--we want to keep everyone safe!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=137996881557

1 in 110 children in the United States

1 in 70 boys in the United States

A new diagnosis every 20 minutes

More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than AIDS, Diabetes, and Cancer combined