Aspies For Freedom

A Horse Tale


It is often said that autistics have a special bond with animals and little or no concept of danger. I am a person recently diagnosed with High Functioning autism and this is a story from my childhood.

My brother Damian was 1 and I was nearly 3 when we went for a holiday one Christmas to visit our cousins in Ferny Grove, Brisbane. Most of my cousins were girls, but they didn’t want to play with me as I was “too little”.

One day, I was in the yard with my cousins and wandered away from them to look at a big white horse that was eating grass in a pen. My story books said horses were friendly so I lifted up the bottom strand of spiky wire and crawled into the pen. Then I walked up to the horse.

I was too short to pat her on the head so I patted her on the tummy. She looked at me and then went back to eating her grass.

After a while, I walked away from her and lifted the spiky wire to get out of the pen. Mum rushed up and grabbed me and picked me up and said “thank God you’re okay”.

There was a big group of people waiting quietly outside the pen by then.

Mum told me years later that the mare was savage with children and had to be locked up at all times. My auntie and uncle sold this horse not long afterwards.

Your story rings very true to my ears. When I was 9 I tried to break up what I thought was a fight between two german shepherds. The male dog Argo snapped off a bit of my left arm, flesh wound only, and then I don't remember anything until when I was in the hospital. The dogs owner took full responsibility and took time to explain things. My dad got another thing to joke about. A little while later I was passing the neighbor and Argo came charging (playfully I guess, now) and I took one step toward him and shouted out his name and he just turned around and ran back and away from me. Argo's mate's name was Ticka, female dog.

Ichtms, that story sounds similar to what goes on in my house. My cats always fight with each other playfully, and you aren't supposed to intervene physically, as it can be dangerous. To get them to stop, you have to yell at them, commonly "Spokuj!" (Spohkooi - calm down), "Kotki!" (Cats), or "Hey!"

Spokuj! was a bit puzzling at first. The guy that had the two german shepherds used to go to Poland and he said that he spoke the language so well that they sometimes didn't believe him when he said he was from Sweden. This was in the 70ies when Moscow ruled.

I think Frederich Schiller wrote something about a character named the same as your W.

tenaciouscj--
that is so funny!!!  hahaha, that cracks me up.  i wonder why she was "savage with children" but not with you.  maybe she just liked you.  i've heard animals like autistic/AS ppl more than NTs.

Wojciech is a common Polish name. Actually I have a cousin once removed named Wojciech, and I hear a guy calling out "WOJTEK!" (Polish pet name) after Religion (some extra thing my grandma takes me to a lot because she's not very diverse in beliefs) But no, it was not the Vo I hoped for.

Also, I think one of the political leaders of Poland in history was named Wojciech, too.

Not Schiller but George Büchner (1813-1837) wrote a play called "Woyzeck". Werner Herzog filmed it in 1979, starring Klaus Kinski...

There was a thing on the telly once about a guy who could "tame" horses in ten minutes, without the use of force or violence. Because he could understand horse body language.

Anyway, I love your story, cj. It's cool.

A summer day when I wasn't older than four of five I decided to mess around with the lazy bees. I took a dry branch and began to poke it at the beehive and it didn't take long until I ran screaming with bees stinging me under my shirt. Lucky I wasn't allergic.

There was this dog, Bonnie, which was my grandpa's. I used to pet Bonnie alot, and I thought she liked me. One day when she digged in the dirt and I petted her numerous times, she bit me in my overlip. The wound bothered me for some time.