When I adopted Basil, there was some uncertainty about whether he would cope with a child in the home but as I explained at the time, my son Adam is autistic and has learning difficulties, he typically ignores pets in the home.

This was the case at first, however Basil is bound and determined to be Adam’s friend. When Adam is dysregulated, screaming and running about, Basil simply absents himself. But when Adam is quiet, sometimes sitting with me and sometimes not, Basil seeks him out to go sit beside him on the sofa or curl up with him on his bed.

At first, Adam would try to shout and push him away because he doesn’t understand pet cuddles, but Basil gently persisted and now whenever Adam sees him he says, “Hi Basil Cat!” (And with a significant language delay, this in itself is huge) and will often try to gently stroke him (something Adam has NEVER done with a pet before) They are regularly found to be companionably sharing space beside or near one another.

I’ll attach a couple of photos to show you.  It’s truly lovely to see both a credit to Basil and also amazing for my son. It’s also having a knock on effect that Adam is now gradually greeting the dogs “Hi Gracie Dog! Hi Poppy Dog!” and asking them to follow up upstairs or to play with him - this never happened before Basil.

So when he’s not playing Danger Cat and doing his best to give me a heart attack, he’s proving himself to be pretty awesome!