Collaring a best friend for Jamie

Imagine the horror of discovering your child is missing in the middle of the night - or has broken away from your hand and is bolting across the road - that is an all too familiar fear for many parents of a child on the autistic spectrum.

Many children with autism sleep very little at night, causing huge strain to exhausted parents and putting themselves at risk if they are wandering around.
Companion dogs are just perfect in these situations. These specially trained dogs will bark to wake parents if there is a problem at night.
When going out, the child and dog are tethered by a lead and if the child makes an attempt to bolt away, the dog will just sit down, stopping him or her in their tracks.
The other big advantage is the dog becomes a friend for life to a child with autism, who may struggle to make friends otherwise and they are an extremely calming influence, leading to fewer ‘meltdowns’ for the child.
One little Ashbourne boy and his family really need a companion dog and the local community have got behind little Jamie Byrne (7) with a major fundraising drive to help finance a dog from ‘My Canine Companion’.
“An assistance dog would make a huge difference to Jamie’s life,” says his Mum, Lindsay.
Local woman, Barbara Brennan, is organising a Special Craft Fair in Colaiste De Lacy, Ashbourne on 7th December from 2-5pm as part of the fundraising campaign.
“We will have almost 30 stalls of unique hand-crafted products, a book sale, a cake salqe and a monster raffle - we already have a huge amount of prizes,” she says.
Representatives of ‘My Canine Companion’ will also be there.
Little Jamie is non verbal, although he has said a few words over the last couple of months.
Jamie’s Mum and Dad are Lindsay and Liam Byrne and he has a sister Jayden, who is wonderful with him.
Lindsay explains that Jamie is able to communicate with the family using ‘The Great App’.
“We have taken photos of nearly everything. When he wants something, he goes into the photos on the app and shows us.”
Jamie goes to the Stepping Stones School for children with autism in Kilcloon.
His Mum explains that he is a bit of an “escape artist”.
“He tries to get out of the house at any given opportunity.
“In March, we went to stay in a hotel with the two children for a break.
“We were asleep at 5am when the phone in the room rang.
“Liam jumped up and screamed ‘Where’s Jamie’ because he was gone.
“We answered the phone and reception asked us were we missing a child.
“He had left the room at 4.30am and had been going up and down in the lift. Thankfully they found him, but they had to ring every room where a child was staying, because he couldn’t tell them which room he was from.
“We were distraught but felt so lucky he was alright and we left and went home,” she recalls.
Jamie is not a great sleeper and has bad nights a couple of nights a week.
“We often have woken up to hear something smashing downstairs. There is always the fear that something has fallen on him. I have him locked out of so many rooms at night now,” Lindsay explains.
The assistance dogs are trained to suit each individual child and Jamie’s will bark whenever he goes wandering at night.
They will also be attached by a harness when going out so if Jamie makes a break for it, the dog will sit down and stop him going anywhere.
“It means we will be able to go out as a family without worrying, and dogs have a very calming effect on children with autism.”
Lindsay explains that they first suspected here was something wrong with Jamie at around 18 months.
“He had been crying on and off and we brought him to hospital. He had fallen and broken his leg. The doctors couldn’t believe he had a fracture but was walking on it.
“One of the doctors pulled me aside and asked if I suspected there was something wrong.
“Before that day, I might have had doubts about his development but just thought boys are slower at developing than girls, but when the doctor said that I realised I had really been worrying.
“The doctor was great. He wrote down a list for me of who I needed to see and contact and the most important thing he told us was to have an assessment of need carried out.

“Our GP, a nurse and I filled out the forms and we were lucky the assessment was done within six months. The waiting lists now are absolutely crazy.
“His was diagnosed early, which is very important because you are entitled to home tuition once you have a diagnosis.”
The home tuition helped with communication and toilet training.
Jamie attended Jonix, a school for children with autism until he was six and he now attends Stepping Stones, where he will remain until he is 18.
Lindsay is very grateful that he had early intervention as it has helped enormously, but she believes that as assistance dog will be a real lifeline for the family and helped them all to lead more normal, less stressful lives.