Dog Rescue Refuses to Adopt to Families with Autistic Children
On March 22, 2022, Kismutt Rescue of Ontario, Canada, posted a message on their Facebook page. It was addressed to “Mama Bears” and referenced their policy of not adopting to families with autistic children. (*I could not find this policy on their website, so it is not clear whether it is for any autistic individual or just autistic children.)
The message related two incidents that resulted in the creation of the policy. One took place around 2008 or 2009 when, according to them, an autistic child’s mother called to say the situation was not working out and her child had been biting the dog. The rescue took the injured dog back, of course, heartbroken by its injuries. The second happened in 2011, when an “11-year-old Autistic child smashed a fan over the dog’s head and cut her and bit her.”
Both awful and sad instances.
The author goes on to write “Guess what….I have 2 children of my own and I know what it is to be a Mama Bear. As well, when it comes to the rescue dogs at Kismutt, I am even more of a Mama Bear.
Parents of Autistic children are also Mama Bears. Of course they are, I get that.”
She then put the policy in place after she consulted a volunteer, who is a teacher that works with autistic children and who claimed that “99% of her autistic students have outbursts and can be aggressive and violent.” She then states about this person “She is a professional in her field and highly respected.”
A very active comments section demonstrates how this post and policy has outraged many parents of autistic children. It appears the author has deleted many comments that disagree with the policy and turned off commenting.
As the proud mother of an autistic child – and of a rescue dog – this breaks my heart. Of course dog rescues like Kismutt Rescue are important. Dogs deserve happy and safe homes. I truly appreciate them taking this role and loving those dogs.
However, the discrimination here is blatant. The assumption that all autistic children would abuse dogs because of two incidents is an unfair stereotype. I could ask a million questions about both of the situations cited.
Under the post, Kissmutt replied to a commenter who complained about people who “cry discrimination” the owner writes “100% agree. I am learning these Mom’s of Autistic children are nutters” (Now deleted. Screenshot available.)
Well as a “nutter ” mom I would like to explain why we do call this discrimination and fight for our children.
Whether you want to call autism a spectrum or not, each autistic individual is just that, an individual. According to the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring 1 in 44 children are diagnosed with autism.
I don’t know what type of autism classroom her teacher friend works in, or the exact rates in Canada, but a study published by National Library of Medicine found that “one in four children with ASD had Child Behavior Checklist scores on the Aggressive Behavior scale.”
25% is quite different from 99%.
When people casually speak these untruths it can only emphasize the discrimination that children like my son face daily, both as children and as they grow into adulthood.
When you place a group of people into a box, you enable others to marginalize them and only see them as a group and not people. This leads to children like mine losing out on everyday opportunities and rights.
According to Ludmila Praslova, a professor of psychology, A 2020 report on U.K. employers says “50% of managers surveyed admitted they would not hire neurodivergent candidates.”
A NBC News article shares a study that found 44% of organ transplant centers in the US say they wouldn’t add a child with a neurodevelopmental disability to the organ transplant list.
Also according to the National Library of Medicine, “Children with ASD and/or ID are at heightened risk for maltreatment.”
While one rescue refusing to adopt dogs to your autistic children’s family, solely based on a child’s diagnosis, may seem small; it only furthers the narrow-mindedness that leads to prejudice and intolerance. This can directly affect my child’s and other autistic people on a much larger scale.
So, from one Mama Bear, please educate yourself on what it means to be autistic, because it can mean a million things. I’m fighting for my son’s right everyday to be seen, to be allowed, and to be loved. I never want a dog to be abused, but generalizations are dangerous and my son loves our dog and deserves to have one.
Written by, Jaime Ramos
Citation Links:
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25221619/
https://hbr.org/2021/12/autism-doesnt-hold-people-back-at-work-discrimination-does
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/push-states-ban-organ-transplant-discrimination-n1259662
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1399-3046.2008.01072.x
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30368827/
Just wanted to explain that in Ontario Public schools, Educational assistants (like the teacher referenced by Kismutt) are only assigned to the students who have the highest safety needs. Most schools only have 1-2 EA’s per 300+ students. The schools do not have the resources to provide EA support for even 10 percent of their autistic students. It is absolutely appalling that these facts were completely disregarded by Kismutt. The only autistic students who qualify for EA support, are those with the most extreme behaviour and safety issues
As a mom to a little girl on the spectrum I am appalled at the comments people left and misinformation spread by this individual rescue. We simply cannot allow our children to be prejudiced.
One may as well say NO family with children or teens should be allowed to adopt based on (definitely more than) 2 cases of children that deliberately harm dogs due to sociopathic behavior or good old fashioned acts of cruelty. Why just stereotype ASD kids.
Makes me so angry
Most rescues simply don’t adopt out to families with any kids. There is a higher risk of a dog bite and less likely to keep the animal if something comes up. If I had kids I’d only want a purebred dog with temperament and genetic testing done anyways. Why take the higher risk of my kids being bitten.
Let’s not forget that rescues are run by volunteers who do this out of the goodness of their heart. They might not have time to screen every applicant to see if their household would be appropriate. For every dog being adopted there is often over 50 applications. They simply go through the list and pick the ones most likely to be a success.
I am torn about this one because on the one hand it’s not the child’s fault that they behave this way but on the other how can we protect dogs that go into a home with someone that may abuse them inadvertently or not. We need to protect both the child from the dog (who may lash out in self defense) and the dog from the child who is acting out aggressively. I think if the child is known to act out aggressively to both people and animals then an animal shouldn’t be in the same house. For the rescue to not adopt to any autistic household is wrong, they should vet the household to make sure the autistic individual isn’t aggressive and only then make the judgement call. Because as we know not all autistic people are violent and some would benefit from the love of taking care of a pet.
I’m speechless. Truly, speechless. As a mother of an adult diagnosed with an ASD as a child and another adult child pursuing a dx now AND as a family where animal rescue was part of who we were/are, I am speechless. The dozens of dogs, cate, puppies, kittens and wildlife that has come through our homes to stay, to move on….all that time, education, broken hearts, joyful moments but not once, even for a moment, has any living thing suffered at the hand of any of my children NT, ASD or a little in between. I’m speechless. Well, I guess not as much as I thought. 🤷🏼♀️
These rescues are run by volunteers, and th eir priority is the dog’s health and happiness. Many people think that the interests of humans should always come first, and are offended if a rescue tries to do what is best for a dog. It is quite shocking that people are so disparaging towards a volunteer run dog rescue because they put the dogs first.
Well…I fear for the safety of the child. I have a nonverbal grandson who loves to catch pets. He hurts them in his excitement. My dogs are terrified of him. Ear pulling. Hair pulling. So feel how you want. Sad for the child sad for the dog. I have kept my pets he just cannot be near them.