This is Bella stretched out, a new posture for her. She doesn't feel the need to curl up in a tight ball all the time anymore. Yesterday I was a bit disappointed because she didn't take chicken from my hand. But later, on the last walk of the day, Bella came out when she heard me putting on my coat without needing to be called. Then she walked with her tail untucked, shaped like a loose 'J', and even extended our walk by another 15 feet. Now we cross the stream completely, and pass the first driveway after it before circling back for our return home. After I unhooked her leash inside the foyer, she stood quietly for a moment and let me pet her. I was so thrilled, I would have been happy with just these small advances, but then, from the safety of her bed, she finally took a treat from my hand. It's as if she wanted to let me know, I have choices, now, mom.
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In our new arrangement, I have been respecting Bella's boundaries much more carefully, and allowing her to have choices. Sometimes she accepts a treat from my hand, especially if it is chicken, and sometimes she doesn't. She has not been panting, so I think she is less anxious now, perhaps because I am not petting her or sitting next to her on her bed.
Bella has successfully faced her new challenge of leaving her bed in order to eat her dinner. I place her food on the floor a few from her bed and leave the room. Bella can make the choice to experience the spaciousness of moving around her room without threat. She has done this fairly quickly both evenings so far, waiting no more than 20 minutes to eat after I put down her food. Mornings I sit in a chair a few feet away from her as she enjoys breakfast in bed. This is a slight shift from our previous habit wherein I sat on her bed as she ate. The new way gives her more comfort while still encouraging her to get used to me. Bella only drinks when I am not in the room. If I come into her room, she will be on her bed. She will use her eyes to look at the place on the dresser where her treats are stored. I respond to this subtle expression of hers by promptly offering her a treat. If she doesn't take it from my hand, I lay it in front of her. On walks, I follow Bella from my end of the leash, letting her determine when to turn around for the walk home. One possible indication of increased confidence-Bella has lengthened our walk by about 20 feet. I just finished meeting with Karolin Klinck and I have been given new insights into Bella. I had many tears during our meeting, but I am grateful for the guidance Karolin has offered. All of her thoughts rang true to me, and I am very glad to have her help assessing Bella's needs.
I'm going to ratchet back even further with challenges due to Bella's extreme fear. From now on, no one will be invited back to visit Bella in her room. She needs to have choice. Just as in the case of humans, having choice will help her be empowered in the face of her trauma. If she wants to meets someone, she has the option to come out of our room. I will make no attempts to vary Bella's walk. Karolin observed Bella's extreme fear during her walk. Bella's fear is demonstrated in her rapid pace, her tucked tail and her rigid adherence to the edge of the road. Her affinity to the border between grass and pavement may also explain her circumnavigation of my yard. She is simply keeping to the periphery where she detects an edge. This may make her feel safer. When Bella is ready to explore, her readiness will be apparent. She will be sniffing more, and will have the option to choose a new route. For one of her two meals, I will allow Bella to eat without me in the room. This meal will be placed a few feet from her bed to encourage her to learn that she can walk around in the space. I won't pet Bella anymore. She has been accepting my touch but not asking for it, and she needs to have choice. For the same reason, I won't sit on her bed. Her bed is her safe space. I will be connecting with Sarah Dayon, a veterinarian who Karolin thinks highly of. Hopefully Sarah will do a home visit and prescribe medication to help Bella during this period. My job is to provide Bella with the opportunity to heal. I will grant her that chance, and back off where necessary. Yesterday, when Bella and I returned from her last short walk of the day, something frightened her as I opened the door to the house. I didn't have the leash disconnected from her cord yet, but she lunged into the house and tried to race back to her room. She was jolted to a halt by the cord, and she slipped frantically on the cement floor. In the process, my hand was caught in the leash handle and my fingers twisted violently. Just a sprain I think. I'm not sure what spooked her, but I yelled when she hurt my hand.
Through out the day, Bella had done a lot of panting. I gave her composure bites to help relax her. She did not easily accept treats from my hand until I offered the highly desirable chicken after our mishap. I hoped to soothe her and end the day on a positive note. During the night I heard a few whimpers as she dreamed, and later a very muffled bark-one of the two she has made since she has come to live with me. One oddity to report- On the return side of the road there is a big puddle. I always pull Bella to the left as we approach it so that she will not get her feet muddy. She always resists me, wanting to stay right next to the edge where the pavement ends and the grass begins. Over the last couple of days, the puddle has diminished, and yet, as we approach the place where it has been, Bella pulls me hard to the right to counter my anticipated correction. It is as if this is a part of the routine that she has imprinted on; internalizing the formula: walk up the road, walk down the road, pull to the right here, cross the road, circumnavigate the yard, stand on the porch, stand in the foyer. The picture below is from this morning as I drank my coffee and spoke with Bella. Intrepid Circe is comes to investigate. Bella is looks toward me as if to get a read on the safety of the situation. Sorry about the quality of the picture. Its hard to get a good shot filming wildlife in the field ;) Bella can take treats from my hand now, but the skill is not transferable to locations other than her bed. When I have offered her chicken in the foyer, she seems confused or uninterested. Everything she does, she does in strict adherence to her rituals. If I ask her to vary, she is frightened, but occasionally cooperative. Our walk, the walk we do six times a day, starts with a left out the back door, then a cut through the yard, quick march up the road to the stream whereupon Bella initiates a nice arc back, an enthusiastic crossing of the road when my house comes into view, the very important circumnavigation of the yard-then the wait on the deck for paw wiping, and finally, into the foyer and the wait for the leash to be disconnected. To conclude the adventure, Bella trots very efficiently back to the safety of her bed. We do this exactly the same way every time, six times a day.
I think ritual, or habit, is part of animal survival, and sometimes their demise. They learn a route and then follow it repeatedly. The deer enter the neighbor's yard in the same place every year until a generational path is worn. The squirrels have highways through the trees and maintain their traffic patterns. The robin pair that nests in my carport produces two or three batches of offspring every year using the same nest. These behaviors are of great interest to my cats who have established repetitive patterns of their own. Circe and Imja have a pattern that includes fighting through the window with their tiger striped frienemy. The tiger approaches the sliding glass doors belligerently. She gets up on her hind legs, opens her front legs as if to embrace, and then makes a kind of clapping motion against the glass. This infuriates my cats, and the three of them hurry to repeat the ritual at every eye level window they can find. They do this several times a week. It's something all three of them seem to look forward to. Bella continues to spend most of her time in her safe place. Every time I hand feed her treats, I need to undertake the same seduction. Sit next to her on her bed, start a let's get to know each other conversation, offer a little tentative petting, and then the treat. I am rewarded for my patience with her butter soft muzzle whispering on my palm. For a few days, I have been feeling discouraged. Although Bella has begun sleeping on her bed, she has also been panting a lot. I haven't know whether this is because the Tempur Pedic bed retains heat, or because she has been anxious. My guess is anxiety. If another person comes into her room, her panting increases. She has been panting with me, too, which hurt my feelings a little. (I'm being silly, I know.) I had to change the blanket on her bed because it was damp.
I was also discouraged because Bella has been inconsistent about accepting a treat from my hand. Once or twice, she even turned away. But last night there was no panting. She slept silently. And this morning it took 3 minutes instead of 6 for her to stand up and come off of her bed to eat her breakfast. She took 4 treats from my hand, one after another. (Of course, I put my hand on the floor right in front of her nose.) She rewarded me with many little butterfly kisses as she gently took one treat after another with her soft lips. Each offering was interspersed with periods of petting. I think it has helped to follow my veterinary school friend's advice. I approach Bella from the side, looking down. I have to remember that each time I interact with Bella, I need to initiate the contact gently and indirectly. Although I go in and out of our room for various reasons daily, Bella is not yet ready for me to be casual with touch and movement. She sometimes pants when she sees me getting dressed, or simply changing my sweater. I feel better about Bella's progress when I review these blog notes- it helps keep Bella's many micro-gains in mind. If you are following this blog, you might wonder why I would feel discouraged at all given the many little advances, but 90% of the time Bella is lying in the corner of my bedroom, withdrawn. I hope I am witnessing her slow birth to a world of tiny wonders. When Bella first came home with me, it was as if she was dead. She made no expression and hardly moved. If approached, she turned her head away. She was deep inside of herself and completely shut down, like a space traveller in a science fiction movie in an induced coma. I wasn't even sure she was there. Only the sadness in her eyes told a tale.
Yesterday, when I went into her room she watched me keenly. Perky ears and curious expression. Then she deliberately turned her eyes to the treat basket on my dresser before returning her gaze to me. I don't know if she was asking for a treat, or simply associating my coming in with the likelihood of a treat being offered, but whatever it was, this was a live dog communicating! Although Bella eats in front of me, and sometimes accepts a treat from my hand, she has only been eating when the food bowl is right next to her on her bed. While this is not ideal, I'm just happy she's been eating well. I've decided to change this up a bit. Instead of putting the food bowl on her bed, I put the bowl a couple of feet away from her. She has to stand up and take a few steps in order to eat. Tonight, when I did this for the first time, she did not eat right away. Instead, she began to pant anxiously. It was hard to feel the tension that the little change created for her, but I held my ground and focused on my phone so that she didn't feel me watching her. After about 5 minutes, Bella gathered the courage to get up, take the few steps to her food, and eat. She paused briefly at one point, appearing to listen, wary of some unknown concern. Then she finished her meal and went back to her bed.
Bella does not drink in front of me. She drinks when I am not in the room, or at night when I am lying quietly my bed. I hear the lap, lap, lap of her drinking in the dark. Moving her food off her bed seems like the right degree of challenge right now. She is so frightened. The voices of other people in the outer rooms, and probably all the sounds of the household machines concern her. When she does take a treat from my hand, it's only after I have been petting her for a few minutes. My touch reassures her. When I feel her relax, I place the treat on my palm and rest my hand on the bed in front of her. After a moment, she gently takes it, barely touching me. It feels like a little, very soft kiss. This morning, I spoke softly to Bella and gently scrunched the thick fur around her neck and under her ears. She looked at me, and accepted a treat from my hand. Already she is learning not to pull. The simple technique of stopping when she pulls hard and resuming when the leash is slack is working very well. I tell her no pull and I praise her with good dog when she walks nicely. I think Bella wants to be cooperative, I really do. She also stands quietly on the porch while I wipe her feet and seems to accept it as part of our routine. She will stop on the porch even if I don't tell her to. She is learning that I am her friend.
I sit next to her while she eats her breakfast. She eats every last bit. Later she'll have yogurt for snack to boost those probiotics. After she eats, I pet her a bit and turn to the list I am working on. She doesn't like too much attention and she begins to pant. Even though I am not making direct eye contact, I think she is nervous, so I leave. I'm really looking forward to connecting with the right animal providers. I am eager for Bella to have an anti-anxiety med. Shortly later, I decide to go outside to plant a river birch. Bella, who heard me rustling in the hallway, appears silently at the door to my little foyer. Would you like to walk, Bella, I ask as I hook up her leash. On this, our second walk for the morning, Bella has a near perfect performance. We take the loop walk, which causes her some trepidation, but she is not terribly resistant when I correct her direction. I do this gently three times before she accepts the left turn required for the pretty loop walk. She barely pulls, and when she does, I said wait, and we stop for a moment. I truly think she is understanding what I am saying. She doesn't rush inside, and once inside the foyer, she stands patiently as I un hook her leash and say OK. |
please note:This page is not professional, and has nothing to do with the rest of my website. I'm writing as Bella's mommy, just for fun. Perhaps this blog will be helpful to others working with former puppy mill dogs. Archives
September 2019
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