Cats and ASD

A lot of people joke that cats have Asperger's. After watching our cat, Stormy, I have to agree. It's quite funny to watch, actually. One second Stormy is a nice and loving cat who'll walk up to you purring his little heart away and the next second he turns his tail to you and will bite you if touched. He runs if anyone comes to visit and stays hidden until long after they leave and takes off at the slightest "wrong" sound such as a computer chair being moved or opening the oven.

He hates anything to be out of place and will meow and complain like crazy if something is moved. A few weeks ago I cleared off a bookshelf so we'd have a surface to put food and drinks on and Stormy complained for days about it. He would look up at the bookshelf and meow, meow, meow. We even put him up there to see if he'd like it as a perch but he wanted nothing to do with it. He wasn't happy until the pictures were on top of it again.

Stormy, like other cats I've owned, is obsessive about time. He knows when his box is cleaned and will come bother me wherever I'm at and meow at me until I go clean it. He's the same way with his food. It's quite adorable sometimes.

Whenever Mike's gone, even if it's just going out to get something, Stormy goes through the house meowing like crazy and opening up all the doors trying to find him. He hates having his environment changed by one of us being gone for any period of time. He's only content when he knows where both of us are and that we are where we're supposed to be.

The reason I'm thinking on this line today is a conversation Mike and I have been having about ASD and pets. For me cats are best. I can relate to them and understand them batter than any other type of animal I've ever had. For Mike it's always been dogs. It's been my experience that animals are good for anyone who has any type of "problem" with communication. Cats and dogs help us to see the world in a different way and help us by giving someone with whom to communicate on a level we're comfortable with. For both ASD and non-ASD children, animals teach responsibility and caring for a creature other than ourselves. I wholeheartedly recommend animals for anyone on the spectrum; they are more important than you can imagine because animals have communication problems too and it's up to us to figure out what they want.