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Ten-year-old Natalie lives with autism and epilepsy and - as her Mum, Phillipa, explained - it makes life complicated. She still doesn t really understand danger, so she runs away and will run in front cars, into water, runs up to people, runs up to strangers and touches them which can be a bit embarrassing. We got to the point where it was so dangerous and so stressful we really just stayed home. And if there was something we had to do my husband and I would split and one of us would take the boys or go wherever it was and the other one would stay home with Natalie.
The 50-year-old said he developed neurotoxicity while working in the automotive industry, his exposure to chemicals and solvents causing damage to his brain. He moved in with his mother at age 27, no longer able to work or navigate high-stimulus situations. “Disability can be extremely isolating,” Kane said. “But Sophie encourages social interaction. She puts a smile on people’s faces, and it’s infectious. That lifts your day.” Kane’s story features in a new book,
Friends Indeed by Sue Allison, which focuses on 41 people and their assistance dogs. The book also features blind Wellington man George Taggart, who was stopped from boarding a bus because the driver did not believe poodle Guss was a guide dog; an Afghanistan veteran with complex regional pain syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder supported by German shepherd Delta; and a 15-year-old quadruple amputee whose Labrador Charlotte starts the working day by helping her dress.