A dog???

I’m reading this book, “Not Even Wrong” by Paul Collins. His son is autistic and he does all this historic research on autism and it is SO interesting and SO good.
I get to this part where he is visiting a prison in Wisconsin where service dogs are trained. And autistic people get mentioned. The author asks the man in charge of the operation, what would you teach a service dog to do for an autistic person? And he answers, keep them safe. Keep them from darting in front of cars, or being grabbed or scammed by people who take advantage of oblivious people. Teach them how to interact by learning love and kindness from the dog and toward the dog.
And I thought, wow, that is amazing. What an incredible idea. So I look up guide dogs for autistic people where we live and there is a local nes story about an autistic child with a service dog, that he is the first to get one and the family goes on and on about how much easier their lives are now with the service dog. And there’s a link to the website for the service dogs.I want one for Monster. I emailed them asking for an application. I think about my son who runs out in front of cars in parking lots, who will run across a street without thinking, who loves animals but isn’t quite sure how to approach them, and who wants so badly to have a close friend but doesn’t know how. And I think, a dog. Of course. But a service dog, even better. A dog who is trained to help my son. If they tell me no, your son does not qualify, the next step will be to work on hubby to buy Monster a dog. We’ve tried cats. Not only am I suddenly horribly allergic to them, but Monster develops horrible obsessive love/fear relationships with them. They wander the house. He doesn’t know where they are. They jump out at him and this leaves him always asking, “where’s the cat?” in a nervous voice. He asks us to lock the cat in a room overnight and we tell him no. He asks us to close his bedroom door at night and we do, but then bedtime becomes panic, “Close the door, quick! Quick!! THE CAT’S COMING!”
Stupidly, we tried cats twice. The first was a kitten and we decided quickly that a kitten was too vulnerable for our toddler boy – more than once I found him lifting the cat with his hands arounds its throat. We gave her away. We got an almost-adult male. But Monster started picking on him and this cat seemed like he had come from someplace abusive, and he started fighting back. He would jump out of nowhere and shred his claws down Monster’s legs. Monster would look at us aghast and scream, “He did that for NO REASON!” but of course there was a reason; the cat, like Monster, did not always exact his revenge at the moment he was injured. The two of them played this game of waiting until the other was vulnerable, not paying attention, and then one would kick, the other would claw, and both would again dash off and wait for their next chance.It was nightmarish. Kitty #2 had to go. But a dog. The RIGHT dog. A sweet, loving dog that doesn’t jump on you (Monster hates that) doesn’t lick your face off (he hates that too), isn’t too high-strung or jumpy (this would add to Monster’s already high anxiety – he needs a calming influence). A dog would be wonderful for my son. I just emailed them. I will tell hubby tonight but we won’t say a word to Monster about this type of dog or any dog. But this is actually exciting for me.