I met Kenzo when he was small enough to fit into the palm of my hands – a small, bulky little Staffordshire Bull Terrier with a heartbeat that immediately synced with mine. He gave me what the world could not: steadiness when my life was unpredictable, silence when words were like bombs going off, routine when everything was complete chaos. 

Before my autism diagnosis (when I was navigating a bipolar label, daily instability, and intrusive thoughts) Kenzo was the difference between wanting to ‘check out’ and ‘staying.’ There were stretches when he was the only being I spoke to for weeks, aside from the dreaded food shop and doctor/psychiatrist appointments. It wasn’t loneliness; it was safety, comfort and a clear routine.

Autistic nervous systems are not built for the neurotypically focused, one-way of living that the world operates in. When I’m in sensory overload – when sight, sound, smell, and emotion are all turned up to maximum volume, “I’m here to talk” is a door slamming shut! Talking in a meltdown makes the storm completely worse for me! What helped was lying on the floor with Kenzo, stroking his head, feeling his soft fur, and hearing his breathing. No questions, No bright lights, No demands! Just breathing in sync, a shared quiet that let my body slowly downshift. That’s not just a feeling; it’s physiology. 

Close, calm contact with dogs has been shown to lower cortisol, increase oxytocin, and shift the autonomic nervous system toward rest-and-digest states – characterised by increased heart rate variability, fewer stress spikes, and a body that can finally let go. 

Research keeps showing these changes during human-dog interaction, mapping what many of us already know through experience: this is co-regulation, not a metaphor. It’s a biological partnership!

When people say “reach out, I’m here to talk, don’t suffer in silence”, they rarely imagine what reaching out looks like for an autistic person in crisis. Calling an ambulance while in a state of overload – The sirens, the lights, the strangers, the questions, the hospital’s sharp smells and buzzing fluorescent air – each layer is a new explosion to an already shaking system. Kenzo never asked me to explain myself. He didn’t misread my silence as absence. He accepted that communication could be a shared wavelength of pressure and breath, and routine. Feed, walk, rest, repeat. Not “small talk,” but a pattern that helped me survive – and I genuinely know that without him, I wouldn’t be here to write this.

And then he died.. 

Talk about devastating… It has been nearly two years, and I still talk out loud to him and have our conversations. I still lie at the top of the stairs where his bed was and cry in the middle of the night. Grief for me isn’t just the hollow of missing him; it was losing part of the scaffolding my life sat on. The pattern – him being with me day in day out, all day, our conversations, our play, the silly names I’d make up for him, the quiet order when he slept while I listened to his snores – all gone.. forever! The way his body absorbed the thunder of my meltdowns – gone. The safety – gone. People like to say “a dog is just a pet.” For many autistic people, that is not the bond! Dogs are companions, yes, but also regulators, interpreters, and anchors. I felt protected by someone who didn’t need to speak my language to understand me – we had our own connection! Even now, I still cry about him weekly.

I’ve noticed something about the way many allistic and autistic people tend to bond with animals. Allistics often talk about dogs as an add-on, social bridges,  ways to meet neighbours, spark conversation, and do more human things. For me, and for many autistic adults, the bond runs through a different circuit: predictability, nonverbal synchronicity, and nervous system calm. That difference isn’t small; it’s why the loss of a dog can feel like losing both a loved one and a life-support system.

People sometimes call this “dependence”, like it’s a flaw – I call it a life-saving adaptation! And I’m not alone. Autistic adults describe dogs as stabilisers – routines that get us out of bed, a warm presence that pulls us back from the edge when things get dark. People like me will say it plainly: my dog kept me alive. That’s not exaggeration. It’s the complicated truth of living in a world that rarely meets autistic needs – and finding, in a dog’s steady gaze and soft fur, a form of care that fits. Kenzo didn’t fix me, he met me! He made it possible for me to keep going.

I still miss the sound of him stretching, the click of his claws on the wooden floor, the way he would lie next to me until I calmed down. I still grieve the shape of our days. And I still hold onto what he taught me: regulation is silent; love can be structured; and sometimes the most fluent language between two beings is touch, breath, and routine.

Why this bond is more than “just feelings”

• Dog-assisted therapy can lower stress and improve functioning in autistic adults. In a randomised controlled trial with autistic adults, dog-assisted sessions reduced perceived stress and anxiety-related symptoms and supported social awareness and communication compared to controls [open-access study in J Autism Dev Disord](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7261269/).

• For autistic adults specifically, everyday life with a dog can be protective. A qualitative study of autistic dog owners found that dog-related activities (cuddling, walking, feeding) improved mood and daily functioning; notably, 16.7% reported their dog had prevented them from taking their own life, often through affection and the responsibility of care [Nature Scientific Reports, 2021](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-02504-8).

• The nervous system shift you can feel is measurable. A systematic review shows human–dog interactions are associated with increased oxytocin and heart rate variability, and decreased cortisol – consistent with parasympathetic activation and stress reduction. That’s exactly the physiological state that helps during sensory overload [International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2022](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167876022001787).

• Broader reviews highlight brain-and-hormone pathways. Interactions with companion animals can alter activity in emotion-related brain regions and adjust hormones like oxytocin and cortisol, supporting mood regulation and stress recovery [Frontiers in Psychology, 2024](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1354220/full).

• Beyond autism, the pattern is consistent: canine-assisted interventions reduce stress and improve mood in humans, aligning with the co-regulation many of us experience with our dogs [reviewed on PubMed Central](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12380019/).

This research explains what I felt lying on the floor with Kenzo – the calming, the softening, the sense that my body could be safe again- lines up with what the research is starting to map. For autistic adults, that bond is not an optional sentiment. It’s a form of care that understands us without asking us to perform understanding first.

Almost Two Years on..

A couple of weeks ago, an adoption chance appeared – a three-year-old British Bulldog, with a small window to decide then or it closes! My family and I had already been mulling over the idea of getting another dog, knowing it would hurt and help at the same time. My son is eight. He loves animals. “Kenny” was his big brother. Their bond was very special – Kenzo was his older, protective brother.

One of the reasons I didn’t want another dog: it felt like betrayal! People say that’s irrational and even stupid. But when a human family member dies, you don’t get “another.” If that sounds strange, you clearly don’t understand the link between autistic individuals and dogs.

Another reason: time files and memories naturally fade; it’s part of the healing process. That is a fact! A new dog would soothe the trauma of losing Kenzo – because dogs take up space, routine, laughter, and they fill gaps by simply existing. But to me, the hurt also keeps him alive. The pain is a projector; it keeps his outline and memory sharp.

People say, “You’ll always remember him,” and I know they mean well. Memory is always there, but it thins – this is only logic. I had a dog as a teenager who died in my arms. I was a wreck. Now he’s far away in my mind, a softer picture I struggle to feel in my body. I don’t want that for Kenzo. I want to feel in my heart how important he is and was to me, not just the silhouette or a sentence that doesn’t hold as much weight.

When people say, “Just get another,” they act like only comfort and routine matter and clearly don’t experience this part of life as I do. I’m going through the process of analysing who I am, how I manage my senses, how grief works over time, and what it means to honour a memory. Is life just being loved, becoming a story, and then fading? In ten years, will Kenzo be only a bright name in the dark or a faded paw print tattoo on my arm? 

People often give advice like, “Life’s too short to grieve this long.” But what is “life,” exactly? We don’t all experience it in the same way, or at the same speed or depth. For some of us, pain isn’t a mistake to fix; it’s a sign we’re alive. For me, I associate life with pain to some level due to my own personal experience. It proves that when happiness shows up, it’s real, not an illusion – because it stands opposite the pain. I question life a lot. Through my late autism diagnosis, I see that this is how my mind works: precise, layered, persistent, and I need to know the hows and the whys. Some people think this looks odd. To me, avoiding or not thinking about these questions seems even stranger. How do you not go there?

Meet Narla.

First night with us and she was already so loving – Doggy kisses, leaning into touch, licking my bald head, asking for attention like she has always known us. I’m surprised by how quickly she has tuned herself to our routine, how quickly we tuned to hers. Things will still take time to get into a full pattern, but we adore her and she is loved already. She will be good for my family, and for me.

And still, I don’t want to lose my memory of Kenzo. Maybe we are, in the end, what we leave inside each other. Maybe that’s the message: be good to each other while we’re here, because the trace is all that lasts, and it only matters the time we have together and what memory we leave behind.

Kenzo, you are etched into my soul. I don’t use that lightly. Without you, I would not be here. I’m grateful for the time we had – the ordinary moments, the fun, the love and routine that kept me alive, the way you were not “just a dog” but a being who met me where language and people failed.

Usually, I pour my emotions into my art, which gives me a visual representation of how I feel. But this time, the feelings are too literal for art, and I’m finding it too overwhelming to create something that shows so much beauty with pain as a true reflection. So this is what I have: a mess of sentences from a person in turmoil, full of love, pain, confusion, emotionally deregulated, trying to process my thoughts! 

If this reads messy, it’s because of this strong emotion we call grief – even writing this, I have tears in my eyes and a pit in my stomach.

Dedicated to my firstborn son, Kenzo. I hope you hear me when I speak to you. I hope that I will see you again ❤️