A family are promising to save their kid’s autism support dog after it suddenly ended up being paralysed over night. Seven-year-old Wispa entered into Micah Harris’ life in December 2018, at a time when Micah was dealing with extreme psychological health concerns.
Micah, who resides in Pontllanfraith in Caerphilly county, wasn’t identified with autism up until he was 18. According to his mum, Alex Harris, this indicated that he experienced obstacles that somebody being identified at a younger age would not. As an outcome, Alex said that Micah’s psychological health suffered significantly and he tried to take his own life.
But thanks to his faithful friend, Wispa, Micah, 24, had the ability to pull through. With Wispa by his side throughout, Micah studied at Aspiris College South Wales in Cwmbran and this year finished his Level 3 certification in Applied Science. In September, Micah wants to study at Cardiff University with the objective of taking Wispa along to support him.
Read more: GoFundMe me for husky who suffered ‘catastrophic injuries’ during attack raises £30,000
Over the years, Wispa, a Chocolate Labrador crossed with a Cocker Spaniel, has actually used life-altering assistance for Micah in more methods than one, according to mum Alex. She said: “The bond in between Micah and Wispa is incredible. Micah tried to take his own life more than 20 times in the space of a year.
“Without Wispa, he would most certainly have actually been successful in his efforts. Wispa assisted him through this time and allowed him to start leaving your house on his own and gain access to stores and the neighborhood, which he couldn’t do before.
“For example, Wispa will come out shopping with him. If he didn’t have Wispa and he was out shopping with me, it’s a very stressful time for him. Whereas when Wispa is there and if Micah gets overwhelmed, Wispa will guide him out of the shop.
“Wispa will nudge him to show him that he’s there if Micah is showing signs of distress. When Wispa came into his life, Micah used to wear ear defenders, but now he doesn’t have ear defenders anymore – he’s got noise cancelling headphones.”
But things took a turn for the worst on Saturday, July 8, when Micah woke up to find Wispa unable to walk. “On Friday last week, Micah was throwing the ball to him and he didn’t want to go after the ball, which was really unusual,” Alex explained.
“During the night, he started to whine a bit, which again is not like Wispa. Micah spoke to the support staff in the accommodation he lives in and said there was something wrong with him.
“The support staff said that they would take him to the vets in the morning. They said they would look after him so Micah could have a couple of hours sleep, before taking him to the vets first thing. When Micah got up, Wispa had lost control of his bowels and it had gone all over the house – he could not walk. Micah phoned me and he was really upset. They took him straight down to the vets.”
Although Wispa had never shown signs of severe health concerns up until that point, he had become very unwell overnight. Following an MRI scan, it was found that Wispa’s absence of movement in one part of his body was due to intervertebral disc extrusion, which meant that he had slipped discs on both sides.
According to Alex, an operation to help Wispa was set to cost thousands of pounds. She said: “On Sunday morning, Micah called me and said: ‘Mum, they’ve said that it’s going to cost £8,000, we’re going to have to have him put down – we can’t do that. And I agreed, we couldn’t have him put down.”
With insurance not being able to cover the amount and vet bills being very costly, the family decided to set up a GoFundMe page in the hope that they could raise funds to pay for both Wispa’s operation and his subsequent rehabilitation therapies. Wispa had his operation on Sunday, July 9 and luckily managed to pull through.
On Thursday, Wispa returned home and is said to be doing well so far with motion in both his legs following the operation. “Micah was just over the moon,” Alex said. “He’s absolutely made up that he came home as he wasn’t sure he would ever come home again.”
But the journey to reassuring that Wispa has actually a healthy future is not over yet as the family is fundraising for his vet bills and rehabilitation therapy for when he’ll need to learn to walk again. Alex said that she also wanted to use the opportunity to raise awareness on the importance of autism support dogs.
She said: “Wispa has enabled Micah to do so much, but more importantly, have access to the community. Micah would not speak to you or anybody on the street, but when he’s got Wispa, he is known to have a conversation with people because they were talking about Wispa.
“He’ll go to the local shop with Wispa, the woman who works there sees him all the time and loves Wispa, that’s a relationship he wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for Wispa.
“He helps Micah communicate with the world around him. The difference Wispa has brought into Micah’s life is unbelievable, he’s been through a hard time even when he had actually Wispa. But without Wispa, he wouldn’t have made it through that time. He still had actually something to live for.”
