One of Molly's Aversions.....

We can't pinpoint exactly when Molly's fear of animals began. She was raised with Darley, our fetch obsessed yellow lab who we had pre children. As with all of her OCD issues, they creep up on us until they smack us in the face with the obvious. When she wouldn't get out of our car at a trailhead to go for a hike, was the day that we realized that Houston we had a problem. She KNEW that she'd see lots of dogs on our Colorado hiking trails. It's what we do out here.  And have you tried to make an autistic child get out of a car and go for a hike? It wasn't worth the prolonged tantrum nor the noodle that she would become on the ground.

But instead of letting her win this forever battle as we like to hike, we knew that we needed to get another dog a year after Darley passed away. So we rescued Tucker (a 7 year old mellow yellow lab, who was not a puppy that would jump all over her).

This helped. They hiked together for 8 years until Tucker passed this past November at 15 years old.

And slowly Molly has learned to accept other animals around her. She doesn't love them. And keeps a wary eye on them when near her. But she doesn't panic and freak out. She even walked a miniature therapy horse around the parking lot at work recently.

So when THIS happened last week, I was very touched.

See that tiny black fur ball? That's a dog :)

Molly had gone with me up to Denver to do some work since she is on summer break and my work allows for that kind of "bring your kid" flexibility. We plugged her into her music and she sat down on the sofa. This tiny poodle Rosie was jumping all over her and licking her ankles. Molly was edgy and kept saying "No". Finally Rosie understood and plopped herself on a chair across the room. Molly didn't take her eyes off the sleeping dog. I went into the other room to work.

1/2 hour later I went to check on Molly and this is what I saw and HAD to take a picture. Rosie was sleeping happily beside Molly and Molly had a sweet little smile on her face about this whole friendship. I couldn't believe it!! I said "It looks like you made a friend! I'm so proud of you Molly!" She just smiled. She seemed proud of herself too.

And all of that went down in absolute silence with no panicky noises from Molly.

My girl is still learning and growing!!

xo