There tends to be a lot of autism around the tech centers... when you concentrate the geeks, you're concentrating the autism genetics.

People wouldn’t have become who we are today if we hadn’t coevolved with dogs.

I think sometimes parents and teachers fail to stretch kids. My mother had a very good sense of how to stretch me just slightly outside my comfort zone.

The thing is, autism is a big spectrum. Going from folks who remain nonverbal, all the way up to, ya know, famous scientists and musicians. And we've got to work on strengths. We also have to work on teaching basic manners and skills.

One thing I'd like to just keep on doing is I want to educate people about animal behavior and about autism. I've been doing autism talks for the last 20 years and there still are people out there that do not want to, they can't recognize that these sensory problems are real. That, for some of these kids when that fire alarm goes off, that really hurts the ears, it's a really real thing.

The most important thing in a shelter is that volunteers, especially with dogs, come in everyday, take that pet out for an hour of quality time.

You get these fear memories that are hard to undo.