(06-21-2012, 12:40 PM)Tuttleturtle Wrote: Anyways, why I'm responding now. I feel incredibly silly (and mentioned this in chat a few days ago). I've been completely overlooking the basic task that a dog would do for hypersensitivities.

Respond when the person is starting to get overloaded, tell them they are, and lead them to the exit.

I'm not sure if my difficulties in identifying how I'm feeling and it taking until more than mild overload are somewhat related to being autistic, but a dog interfering before overload gets bad seems to be a straightforward, useful, task. And it seems to be one that is explicitly worth mentioning in case others want to be looking in this direction.

Indirectly you bring up a point I've been wondering about: for someone who is hypersensitive, could the dog cause more problems than it solves?

My son gags and retches at the smell of "wet dog" and he is in general not hypersensitive. Dogs also bark, whine and make other assorted doggy noises, and make very stinky doggy poop. They can't help these things, they're just doggy things to do, but could/would these things become triggers in and of themselves, just making the whole SPD picture worse?