'He Changes My Life': Emotional-Support Dog Comes to Aid of Owner Suffering Panic Attack

An 18-year-old New South Wales resident has shared a Facebook video showing the positive impact of her autism service dog.

Marley the dog, whose calming effect on his owner was the focus of a viral video in September this year, is seen in new footage jumping up to help his clearly ill-at-ease owner.

Hayley, who prefers not to give out her full name, told Storyful, that Marley was helping her “through a sensory-related/dissociation attack.”

“He won’t stop until I listen to him,” Hayley said, “Notice how he gets his paws between my arms and pulls me to him? He is trained to do that to get me to hug him.”

This action helps to calm his owner, who said, “I’m often mute during these attacks and anybody touching me can make it worse.”

Hayley said that before having Marley, “living with high-functioning autism was hard, I grew up bullied, I grew up struggling majorly with school, I hardly had friends as I was that weird kid. Marley has given me so much sense of independence and he has changed my life. I want to spread awareness of autism service dogs.”

Sharing the footage to the Dogspotting Facebook group, Hayley said, “He changes my life every single day.” Credit: marleytheservicecollie via Storyful