All That Is Left Behind

I took my dog in my arms, and I made my way to the boy. I was no older than four of five, and there was absolute distress written all over his face.

I made sure to have a good grip on my dog as he could get exited easily, and I knew a lot of people, including children, are easily intimidated by dogs, especially the overly expressive ones.

“Hey there,” I said.

The boy didn’t even look at me.

“Are you lost?” I asked him.

He didn’t turn around, but I knew he heard and understood me as he pointedly put his back to mine. There were silent tears in his eyes, but contrary to most children I’ve encountered, he wasn’t expressing his sadness very openly, which I found quite strange.

“You see,” I began. “My dog is named Miki, and he kept asking me to come around here. I really don’t know why. Do you? Maybe there’s a tennis ball hidden here somewhere. Would you help me look?”

He finally turned around, but his eyes were automatically drawn to Miki.

Miki gave him a doggy grin and waved his tail so hard, his little booty went side to side in my arms.

The boy had brown hair and gorgeous large brown eyes. He was wearing good clean clothes too that fit him perfectly. And he looked at the dog, hypnotized.

“Do you want to pet him?” I asked.

He said nothing, but I knew he heard me. He didn’t look at me, still glued to Miki.

“Here, let me show you how.” Then I spent the next minute showing the boy how to pet a dog.

“Do you want to try?” I asked him.

returned his gaze automatically to Miki. It gave me the strange vibe you get with autistic children. He had problems looking in my eyes, but clearly none in looking in a dog’s eyes, so

and we finally both sat on the grass, I sat Miki in between us, keeping my hand on him to make sure he would not get too close to the kid and spook him, whom eventually

the exercise a few times, and he did more and

he talked, and given how he ignored me when I started with this line of questioning, I decided not to push on too quickly as I feared he’d stopped communicating

Granted this communication method was pretty rudimentary, but at least it was one.

as minutes went by and he interacted more and more with the dog, his expression slowly melted

name?”

disappeared as he looked briefly at me.

Mila. I live with Miki not far from here. Miki loves parks

I shared information first it could make me sound more trustworthy, but I

into my bag, and next to my drawing pad,

on, and suddenly ignore the kid and turned to

out

his weight from his left paw

him lie down. I had to say it twice until, his

looked at this scene in

“Do you want to try it?” I asked.

He nodded.

internal ‘yoop’ as I managed to make the kid say something. Silently, but still, it’s an

though,” I said as Miki was now back on his paws going in circles and then sitting, but going back up and putting his paws on my legs to tell me

a lot of coaxing out of me to finally make the kid talk. I guessed that if he was more interested in

had to be done, but he worked it out faster than I expected. So

feeding five treats in a row to

I would normally not encourage so much feeding, but it was working really well, and I had heard the boy say at least four words now, and they were not as hard to get out of him than they

all gone, he looked at me expectantly.

you know what Miki loves?” I asked him.