STOP. Come back. Need to stay close.

This is Jake, doing what he loves to do. He is at the edge of several mowed acres around the house. He walks, he picks the tops of grasses and plants, rubbing them between his fingers, smelling them, looking at them, shredding them. And then he moves on. Lather, rinse, repeat - for as long as you can imagine (or possibly longer - hours, days, weeks).

And this is the new STOP sign. Now, I'm happy letting him "stim" with picking the wild plants. He used to be pretty awful about picking my flowers, but we talked about that and he's mostly stopped. Now that it's chilly, he doesn't strip off his boxers or shorts or swim trunks (of which I need to track down several pairs that still live in the woods somewhere), so it doesn't look all that inappropriate. But it's this stim that has led to the wandering. And he can't wander anymore.

The wandering looks like this: he's outside in shorts, he's barefoot because he prefers it that way, the sun is out and it's warm. He picks and works his way down the hill past the stop sign (or any other number of pathways down the hill - we have many stop signs!) and then to the brook at the bottom. He walks along the brook; it's almost dry thanks to a very dry summer. We used to let him go down to the bottom of the hill because he mostly stayed there at one or two spots near the brook. But in the past few weeks, he started walking up or down the brook. It's very difficult to find him when he does this, and the couple of times he's come back on his own, I estimate he was gone 2-3 hours. It's hard to let him come back on his own, but I did it a couple of times to see how long he'd be gone.

But then we found out that he was emerging up the mountain at neighbors' houses, and one neighbor says he "nearly ran him over," although I'm still trying to figure out exactly how that might have happened. I think the neighbors' freaking out has more to do with Jake's nakedness when they found him than anything else, but there is definitely some concern about danger in the woods. I had that concern too, lest I seem like a neglectful parent. This is a very isolated, rural area, and the danger is that a bear, coyotes, or the mythical mountain lion that may or may not exist in Vermont, might attack him - and he would not have any clue that being five feet from a mother bear and cub would be dangerous, what to do, etc. Now, the actual statistical likelihood that a wild animal would attack him? Not that big. More likely? That my neighbor would run him over. Or my fear, that he'd hit his head, or trip and fall (which he's done about three times in ten years, total - I'm serious), get injured and be unable to call for help and we would not be able to find him. Or that he'd get lost and darkness would fall and then I really would worry about something eating him or that he'd be terrified and hysterical (I know I certainly would be).

Anyway, so the wandering had to be put to a stop. Literally. Stop signs now ring our mowed acreage. I've been on the phone with makers of GPS trackers for backup, but they all require cell signal for triangulation, and we don't have a cell signal up here. The stop signs and accompanying social story were the brainchild of our school team's autism consultant, who is fabulous. It's worked, but some days he is still hell bent on breaking out, which requires basically that I sit on the deck and watch him constantly, calling his name and saying, "Good job staying close!" every two minutes. Or when I go to the bathroom and he's inevitably bolted down the hill right past that stop sign, I say, "Stop! Come back," (he usually finishes for me, "RIGHT NOW!") "you need to stay close." He will, reluctantly, trudge back up the hill.

Burke has actually done quite well alerting us to when Jake heads down to the brook. Even though he was inside the other day, he could hear his vocalizing getting fainter, because he started barking. Sure enough, Jake had gone down to the brook. I think it's because Burke thinks his electric fence boundary doesn't apply when Jake does this, so he gets excited about the idea of following him and having some freedom. (And, I've found out, he mirrors Jake so much that once Jake's out of the boundary, Burke will run off for some puppy playtime with our neighbors' dogs, or go swim in the nearby pond.)

We were going to extend Burke's electric fence boundary (the fence has been mostly off due to needing some splicing, and he's still mostly respected it) but we're now thinking about keeping it where it is, and putting the little white and orange boundary flags back up. This way, we reinforce for both dog and boy where the boundary is. I think that having Jake help me put the flags up will be key, and we can use them in the social story. Because it's tough keeping those STOP signs up and even though they're laminated, dry. They're hard to see and the wind whips them off the trees.

So, this is life with Jake for now. He's doing really well at school and making all kinds of gains. Home has been tough because of the wandering, but most days now he is doing okay with it and isn't in bolting mode. M and K have been getting home very late since K's playing soccer, so it's all me and the boy till 7pm. Doesn't make getting chores done inside (or out for that matter!) very easy, but I've decided to look at the silver lining. I'm going to work on afternoon training with Jake and Burke, tethering Jake to Burke and having him practice holding a second leash, and doing obedience work together. 

I've also set a couple of other small goals for Jake. I think I sometimes overdo goals, and get overwhelmed and then stop doing any of it. So besides keeping him from bolting and walking him and Burke in the afternoons as much as I can, I want to do two things: make time for him to dress himself in the mornings (we're often so rushed that I end up throwing his clothes on him, and he needs to practice this) and reading him some middle-grade novels for about 20 minutes each night. I think I am going to start with Suzanne Collins' Gregor: The Underland Chronicles, because I haven't read them and I loved her Hunger Games trilogy. And they have a male protagonist. They seem like they might be something Jake will like. We'll see how it goes.