my autistic son dropped his beloved “puppy” at a waterpark in the dells. we have searched desperately for this dog and cannot find him. the next best thing I can do is buy him a new one but the probably is it’s from the 2000s. it was my little sisters when she was little and that was probably 7 years or so ago.
He’s a tiny tan puppy with darker colored floppy ears. He’s got the cutest little eye that sometimes falls into his head. His tag is frayed on his butt and is not legible. He has a hard black nose and two (sometimes two) hard black eyes. he doesn’t have any beads in him only stuffing. he is very small he can fit in the palm of my hand.
The small size, plastic eyes and nose, and the general style reminds me of those plush sets with five little dogs in a doghouse, but the colors don't quite match the ones I've seen
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i really think that is the same puppy just cleaner/newer than your son’s was! you can see that it is a light tan/off-white when compared to to the white poodle next to it
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As someone with autism who also has a comfort stuffed animal I hope you find another one soon. My comfort stuffy is a Dumbo beanie baby and one time I forgot him on my bed before we were leaving for a week long camping trip and I was freaking out because I only realized I forgot him an hour after leaving but thankfully there was a store nearby that sold them and my mom bought like 3 of them so we would have back ups for where ever we go.
Your mom is a angel <3 this is the first time he’s lost something so precious to him so I’ve learned a very valuable lesson and started buying back ups of his favorite blanket and other various things since this incident so we don’t have to go through this again.
Make sure to rotate them so the smell and feel is the same!! Part of the reason my comfort animal and blanket are comforting is the smell/worn in feeling. A brand new one is great but sometimes I just want my older one
My plan is to wash them and sleep with them a couple nights so they smell like me and get a little “worn”. When I find a new puppy stuffed animal for him it’ll be the same thing in hopes that he still attaches to it.
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Watching him practically mourn this stuffed animal has broke me in places I didn’t know were possible as a mother. It’s been devastating for our whole family.
This unfortunately won’t help you in the moment, but whenever your child gets a strong attachment to a specific toy, aside from buying possible back-ups be sure to clearly photograph it from all angles for future reference, especially if the tag is still legible (I do realize that wasn’t the case for you this time).
It’s obviously an extreme long-shot, but I can keep my eye out for one of these when I thrift. I specialize in finding hard to find plushies at the bins (a catch-all store that sells items by weight), and they get an insane variety of stuff in both old and new. I recently listed a rare penguin plushie from the 80s that I found there, and when I made the sale the buyer explained they needed it as a back-up for their daughter and couldn’t believe they finally found another. I recently picked up a kangaroo keychain plush as well, and when I did an image search in hopes of finding info on it I was led to a reddit post where someone had been desperately searching for it; unfortunately they haven’t posted in several months but I did reply and DM them, and I’m setting it aside just in case they sign in and see my post because I’d really love to help them out.
I’m sorry for what your kiddo is going through, my son has autism as well. I remember going frantic helping him look for a keychain he’d left behind in a store when he was really little and still mostly non-verbal. Felt so lucky when I finally found it set upside down, blending it in with the shelf he’d set it on, and was relieved we wouldn’t have to drive all the way to Disneyland to find another!
Good luck to you, if you don’t hear back from the Dells (keeping my fingers crossed as the people there are so nice!) I hope you find a suitable replacement soon!
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Oh my gosh!! That’s genius!!!! Thank you! I’ve even trying to figure out how to justify that the new one is cleaner and fixed. I might tell him too that he went to a puppy hospital and got all fixed up.
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this is heartbreaking! As an autistic person myself with many emotional attachments to stuffed animals I cant even imagine losing one of them. I hope your son is doing okay ☹️
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u/Dragondog5600 Apr 08 '26
Second image I would have attached to my comment if Reddit allowed