I had never thought about the dog analogy. You're right. I have a shetland sheepdog - another one of those extremely smart, extremely active dogs that NEEDS a job to do or he'll drive you crazy. My husband has never had a sheltie before and it drives him a bit nuttier than me. He prefers the cat and he's not a cat person. I grew up with shelties. Maybe I identify with them.....maybe we have a lot more in common than I thought.... Possibly if I find a way to keep the dog occupied, maybe it'll help me.....?

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Possibly if I find a way to keep the dog occupied, maybe it'll help me.....?

That's what I'm thinking. And I figure it's a much more positive way of explaining AD/HD. So instead of saying "Yeah, I have a disorder" I can instead say "I'm just the Border Collie of the group, I need WORK!"

You Tube has a lot of great videos of agility trials; they look like a lot of fun and stimulation, especially for the herding-type dogs. Not to mention fun for the human partner! Heck, those videos kinda made me want to run that course! Screw the dog, I call dibs on the obstacle course. ;)

Something else I've noticed with dogs, and possibly with people too: The more intelligent the dog, the more likely they are to be "hyperactive" and, depending on how you look at it, harder to train. I wonder if this applies to people too?

Maybe that would explain why so many kids with AD/HD are extremely intelligent, frequently more so than their "normal" peers, but that intelligence maybe comes at a small price?

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There's a book about this! I reviewed it for the Summer 2009 issue of ADDitude. It's called "All Dogs Have ADHD". It's darling!

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I saw that book at Barnes and Noble the other day!

My friend and I had a good laugh about it. My best friend, who I frequently refer to as my older sister (even though I'm the oldest in my family, I just got kinda absorbed into hers), has a younger sibling who is severely autistic. We were at Third Place Books a while ago and found a book called "All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome." It was so cute, and it made my sister happy because there weren't that many children's books on autism back when her brother was born.

Then, about a week later, I found the "All Dogs Have AD/HD" book. I texted my sister about it, and we've both been cracking about it since.

I'm seriously thinking about going back to buy both of those books, because they were so awesome!

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