A Friend Like Henry by Nuala Gardner

Subtitle: “The remarkable story of an autistic boy and the dog that unlocked his world”

The book is really the story of Dale's mother Nuala.

Dale was an autistic boy. His first reply was at 3, and he had the obsessive actions and headbanging tantrums of the deeply autistic child.

Much of the story is his mother's fight to recognize the problem, then to get the authorities to recognize it, and then (over and over) to get people to help. Henry the golden retriever was a breakthrough part of that effort—and not an accidental part, as Nuala describes how, inspired by Dale's unexpectedly happy reaction to a friend's scotties, she researched what kind of dog would be best. Breeds vary a lot in temperament, and the lavish affection and patience that golden retrievers are famous for seemed ideal for Dale.

And so it proved. Dale and Henry (named after a Thomas the Tank Engine character) bonded famously, and Dale was able to make non-threatening connections with the dog that he could not do with people. Dale could understand the dog's simple needs, and learned to connect them to his own.

This took a lot of prompting by his parents: Dale didn't automatically make the connection between Henry needing to be clean and himself needing a bath. Learning to eat properly took training too:

Dale was also a bad eater, never hungry, whereas goldens, especially our Henry, are the world's greediest dogs. As Henry grew, he quickly learned when his meals were due and would bark at “his” cupboard to remind us it was dinnertime. Each day I would wait for Henry to do this, saying to my son, “Dale, what is Henry wanting at his cupboard? He is hungry.” This evolved to the point where Dale would tell me “Mum, Henry's hungry. It's time for his dinner.” Eventually Dale learned from this the concept of his own hunger and when it was dinnertime for him. I developed the trick of telling Dale that his food was good for him as it would help him grow big, just like Henry.

Another great breakthrough came when Henry found “his” voice. A carom conversation through a lovable dog is far less threatening than eye to eye talk with an adult.

When they aren't communicating, it is very easy to assume they are taking nothing in, but when Dale was ten, for example, he told me “If we hadn't talked through Henry, I would have chosen not to talk to you at all.”

As you can guess from the subtitle, there is a happy ending to Dale's story, as he grew more and more able and I gather is making a career in child care (!). Well, almost happy: dogs do not live forever, but Dale is there for the end.

Nuala showed Dale the book, and he made comments of his own on various chapters.

I found the long description of her efforts to get pregnant again both sad and creepy (IVF has issues), and it would have been good to have sketched “a day in the life” for a few different eras of Dale's development. I know several autistic people, and would have been happy for a few more technical details of what the non-dog-based training was like, but the book is meant for a general audience and that might not have fit well.

Read it.

I was asked to review this book.

We had rabbits instead of dogs, which didn't seem to elicit quite the same sorts of reactions—but then our children were far more communicative and affectionate to begin with.