Daisy, therapy cats vs dogs

There's a fair amount of documentation around about the benefits of a dog for children with autism.
We attended the dogs for good workshops a few years ago with a view to getting a dog to help calm Freya down, we learned how they could be trained to help with meltdowns, getting out of the house, road safety etc etc
I was sold on the idea despite never having owned a dog, (we'd had one when I was a child for about a week before it was rehomed) I spent months researching the best dog for us and decided it would be a Bernese Mountain dog. Why?! you may wonder, they're huge! Yes but gentle giants renowned for their patience and love of children and most importantly for me they have a deep non offensive bark.
So off we went and spent about another year attending all the Bernese events up and down the country to make sure we were doing the right thing. I might add Freya was terrified of dogs and still is but I thought she'd get used to it.
Bernese dogs are fairly pricey to buy, about £1200-£2000 depending on the breeder, you'd think therefore not many people would be after one, you'd be wrong.
I finally met up with one of the best known and most reputable breeders who informed me I would not get one of her dogs, her reasons? the children were too small, I wouldn't have time to train it properly and as my husband was disabled we would not have the strength to control it. I was devastated. She suggested we get a retriever or labrador instead.
I have a friend with a retriever and she is still very hyper at nearly 2, I just didn't think they were a good fit for us.
I searched for a dog that would suit us and we ended up bringing home a cross between a newfoundland, collie and german shepherd, we named him max.
Lucas loved max, he loves all dogs and Freya was as expected terrified for a week or so but she did calm down a bit with him. It turned out it was me that the biggest issue with him.
At first he had come to me all the time, I was the one sat in back of the car with him on the journey home cleaning up his sick, but as the weeks went by and I got more stressed with him having accidents in the house and being the only one that would let him out at 5am, clean up his pooh from the garden or play with him etc he started to bond more with my husband who is generally much calmer than me. This annoyed me even more as I was the one running round after him.
I found it especially hard in the evening when I wanted to relax and he would stand in front of me yapping and jumping about, he started barking whenever the dogs next door barked and poking his head through the hedge to see them, on one occasion he was eating and lucas kept touching his bottom and he turned round and snapped at him, this was the final straw for me.
My husband said he was a good dog but he honestly really scared me and I was going crazy with all the stuff he was ruining and all the noise and dirt. We rehomed him after 4 weeks and he joined a family with 3 other dogs and no small children where he is very happy.
So it turns out dogs are not good for all people with autism and rather than add calm to your household they can just triple the stress.
I can't remember how I stumbled upon some information about ragdolls online but I started to read about them and decided to bring one home last summer.
When we went to view the kittens Daisy was the one that sat still for the kids to stroke her so she came home with us.
Ragdolls are renowned for their patient laid back natures, they love people and follow you around like a dog would just wanting to be where you are.
At first she was a little startled by how much noise the kids made and how fast they sped around the house but she soon became used to it. Within a month or so I noticed how much calmer Lucas was when she was in the room, he can be in the foulest mood in the morning and refuse to get out of bed but as soon as she comes into his room his mood just switches and he gets straight up to give her a stroke. She has been so patient with him carrying her around, wrapping her up in blankets, putting feathers and hats on her, she just lies there.
We currently have 5, 7 week old kittens and while we are having some issues with Lucas's behaviour with them the kittens are already demonstrating their wonderful temperaments.
I know lots of people have said their lives have been changed by having an assistance dog but for us our Daisy is a much better therapy cat.

I don't think I'll survive this summer break!

So we're 2 weeks into the summer holiday and I've been in total stress mode for the best part of it. I hear there are people that actually enjoy the summer break and relish in the time spent with their offspring but I'm definitely not one of them.
We currently have 5, 7 week old kittens and these present extra stress for me as they'll be here until mid September. On Sunday Lucas tried to kill one of them, really? you ask. I was in the garden with my husband and Freya and he'd come in the house, I assumed for the loo but after about 5 minutes I wondered why he hadn't come back. You have to watch Lucas 24/7 there are very few times that he is actually doing something normal like watching tv or playing appropriately with his toys, usually he's just stealing food or breaking something or drawing on my walls or furniture or smearing something somewhere etc, he has been overly "loving" the kittens since they were born and has trapped them, held them down, pulled them by their tails etc in an effort to just be with them. Anyway I wasn't expecting to come in the house to find one lying not breathing in the middle of the lounge floor with a string pulled tight around it's neck. Lucas jumped when he heard me coming and moved away from it, I was in total shock and panic and couldn't think what to do, I screamed for my husband while holding it. After a minute or maybe a few seconds I don't know I suddenly realised I needed to get the string off, it was totally limp so I thought it was dead but as I tried to pull it off it gave a tiny wiggle. I couldn't get it off and ran to get scissors and typically couldn't find any, my husband had appeared by now and tried to cut it off with a knife which didn't work as it was quite thick but by now I'd found the scissors and he cut it free. It immediately perked up but I was hysterical by this point. All I could think was my son is a murderer, I remember reading somewhere that serial killers start by abusing animals at a young age and here he was strangling a kitten that he claimed to love.
My husband thinks I'm insane, he thought maybe he was just trying to take it for a walk or something and hadn't meant to hurt it, he also claims he killed his first fish by keep taking it out of the water to look at it?!
I know children with autism struggle with empathy but I just don't believe that he didn't understand what he was doing, he's 4 and a half now he's not a baby and he knows right from wrong, if it was an accident why did he jump when I came in?
We had his appointment with the child development centre this week and the paediatrician confirmed my fears that this was not normal and needed further involvement from a psychiatrist, as he put it, not having empathy doesn't mean you go out of your way to hurt something.
Following on from that is both Freya and Lucas's obsession with trying to hold each others heads under the water every time they get in the paddling pool?! Again I feel they're both old enough to understand how dangerous this is and have had it explained to them a hundred times but still think it's a really good idea!
We've tried to get them out of the house as often as we can afford/handle but there has to be some time when we're just at home and this is when they're at their craziest. They were upstairs the other day and there was suddenly an almighty crash down the stairs, it sounded like a wall falling down but turned out to be lucas had decided to push a heavy wooden stool to the top of the stairs and let go?! Needless to say that was the end of the stool which broke into 3 pieces and made some lovely marks in my wall on the way down.
Even when we take them out it's like there's a timer on their good behaviour and usually by the time we get back in the car after a nice trip out they are back to behaving like 2 starved lions fighting over a piece of meat! I have never met kids that fight as much as mine do :(
I have 4 and a half more weeks of holiday to get through and every day seems like a mini victory but you know it all starts again tomorrow :/