Elerie is our very sweet and lovable two year old. He is from Northern Nevada where he lives with his parents and is the youngest of five children. Elerie is a beautiful Newe/Numu (Shoshone/Paiute) (Noo-wuh/Noo-muh) boy who is beginning to love powwows and growing up in his culture. He loves Pixar's Cars, playing in (or eating) dirt, and dancing to music he hears in movies. Elerie is so silly. He has an amazing smile and laugh, and he is full of so much light and love. We absolutely love the person he is. 

Elerie was diagnosed with severe autism and a sensory-processing disorder in January of this year and is currently non-speaking. We have been educating our family on all of the unique dynamics that come along with having a loved one with autism, one of those being elopement. While our two year old is naturally curious and loves to explore, elopement goes beyond harmless curiosity. Elopement in autism is an impulse-driven response to many different factors; it is difficult to see coming and happens incredibly fast.

Over the summer, Elerie began eloping from our home and putting himself in dangerous situations, and we very quickly learned how much harm he could cause himself. Because Elerie has little to no sense of danger and a very high pain tolerance, it's hard to know if he's hurt. We have been working hard to understand his special way of communicating without words, which can be challenging. Imagine trying to tell someone that you're tired and they keep trying to feed you - incredibly frustrating!

With so many big things happening in Elerie's little world that prompt big emotions, he remains mostly unfazed. While we do get smiles and laughs - we rarely hear him cry (even when he should!). His high pain tolerance and inability to verbally communicate have proven that he is in need of consistent, close supervision. Our family has taken many different safety precautions to minimize his elopements and risky behaviors. We are learning how to navigate Elerie's unique needs every day to ensure his happiness, development, and above all, his safety.

With the help of his developmental and primary care teams, along with our new friends at 4 Paws for Ability, Elerie has been approved for a service dog! A service dog will be essential in keeping Elerie safe. He will be matched to a dog trained to minimize dangerous behaviors, such as self-harming, climbing in unsafe areas, or stimming in places where he could hurt himself. Elerie's service dog will be trained to allow him to be tethered to the service dog to prevent elopement. In the most extreme situations, the dog will be tasked with scent tracking to find him quickly.

We are humbly asking for our family, friends, communities and beyond to help us get Elerie the service dog he desperately needs. No matter if it's a monetary donation, contributing to upcoming fundraising efforts, a simple like or share, mentioning our story to your neighbors, or just being here to get to know Elerie and follow us on this journey - our family could not be more grateful for all of the support that we receive for him! We could not do this without all of you and we could never thank you all enough for helping us keep our boy safe! 

Did you know?

• 46%-49% of autistic children will elope at least once in their lifetime [1]
• About 26% of those children will be missing long enough to have serious concern for their safety [1]
• More than 33% of those autistic children will be non-speaking and unable to communicate their name, address, or phone number to first responders [2]
• There have been 96 confirmed autism elopement deaths in the U.S. as of October 2026 [3]
• Of those children, 80% will be from a minority community [3]
• Native children are 26% times more likely to be diagnosed with a developmental, learning or language disorder [4]

Sources:

• [1] Pediatrics (Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics)
• [2] National Autism Association (NAA)
• [3] National Autism Safety Council (NASC)
• [4] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Office of Minority Health)

Training a service dog to meet our child’s requirements can be very costly. On average it costs between $40,000-60,000 to raise, train, and place a service dog at 4 Paws for Ability. While 4 Paws for Ability fundraises to help cover a significant portion of this cost, families are tasked with raising $20,000 of that amount or $23,000 if receiving a poodle, doodle or papillon. We hope that we can receive assistance from our beloved family and friends to help make our service dog dream a reality.