Hayley Martin from Sydney, Australia, owns a golden retriever named Marley. Others may see Marley as a pet who makes their day. However, for Hayley, Marley is a lot more than that. He is her lifeline.
Hayley is on the autism spectrum. It is quite common for her to experience sensory overload as well as panic attacks. Before meeting Marley, those moments were debilitating for Hayley. Thankfully, with Marley now by her side, Hayley’s life has been turned around.
It was May 2018 when Hayley and Marley first met. Since then, the sweet dog has made an incredible impact on Hayley’s mental health and overall well-being. Within one year, Marley has saved his mom’s life by becoming her service dog and making her more independent. Hayley said that Marley had given her so much of her life back.
Marley spots Hayley’s panic attacks and soothers her, so she does not get hurt. A few months ago, Hayley posted a powerful video showing one of these interactions on a Facebook group. The clip showed Hayley as she grew more and more distressed. She started scratching and hitting her legs, hoping that this would calm herself down.
TW//Here is what my autism service dog Marley does to help me when IM having a more severe attack (Yes I filmed it for awareness and training to see what I can get Marley to improve on ect)I can hit myself as a stimming type thing ad a self regulation to try and calm myself down But Marley is trained to interupt that behaviourSee how he gets his paws and fact right between my arms and my face and pulls them away into a forced hug At the beginning he is doing alerts ad to rich I kept ignoring (lol)He is also licking my tears 🥺So grateful to have this boy every single daThis was harder to upload and it's abit more severe than the others But I wanna show people that dogs can help in great ways
Posted by Hayley Martin on Saturday, January 18, 2020
Marley noticed what was happening and set his paw over his mom’s hand. Hayley kept pushing his paw away, but Marley calmly repeated his action every time Hayley rejects his help. Finally, Marley decided to jump onto Hayley’s lap to “force hug” her and lick her tears away.
At that moment, although Hayley was still upset, she started to settle down and hug her loyal friend back. On the Facebook post, Hayley said that she is very grateful for having Marley every single day. Hayley found it hard to upload the video but decided to do so for people to know that dogs can help in great ways.
Credit: Adventures of Marley, Hayley Martin
