I had just finished a session when my Bella came to my office door to let me know she wanted a walk!  She has never done this before, but she knew to come and look at me where I sat at my computer.  She circled back in faint alarm when I looked at her, but came back again readily with a little encouragement.  She knows when my sessions finish; she listens to everything.  Time to teach her about confidentiality.  My Bella...

After a tearful discussion with Dr. Sarah, Bella is now taking Ativan 3X a day instead of twice a day.  Meanwhile, there has been a small advance with Bella's hobby.  As I mentioned a few posts back, I am following the suggestion that all dogs need a hobby, and I suggested chewing to Bella.  While I have had no way of knowing how Bella has responded to this, each of the pig's and lamb's ears have mysteriously disappeared.  After a harrowing journey through road construction to the pet store, I brought Bella a gift to replace the vanishing treats.  This time her eyes seemed to widen as I offered the ear, and later I was able to get this shot:

Is it my imagination or does she look happy?  Perhaps Bella has decided that chewing is a fine hobby, after all.  An hour later the ear had vanished.

Despite the little firsts, Bella has made no more changes to date.  If we see people on the road walking, she is very concerned.  She will be torn between turning around to move in the opposite direction of the people, or crossing over to our 'return' side of the road to scurry back to safety.  Bella reminds me of a squirrel.  If home is across the road, she wants to dash for it even if that direction puts her in the path of a car.  In general, she doesn't have much sense about cars, nor does she necessarily see my guidance as protective.  So like the squirrel, when alarmed, Bella will try to circle home even when that means getting in the way of traffic.  Of course, I prevent this, but it's notable that safety means move quickly along the known path home as opposed to the path without obstacle.  Without me holding her leash, she would meet disaster several times a week.

On the other hand, yesterday I invited my friend Valerie to call Bella to take a walk in the same way that I do, just to see what would happen.  I have some concerns that if Bella is dependent only on me, and I become unavailable for some reason, she would be lost.  When Valerie called to Bella, Bella went to her, as eager for her walk as usual, despite the change of human.  This was when I was sitting in the living room with two other people whom Bella easily could have seen had she looked up.  Bella walked with Valerie, and did so without a tucked tail.  But she must have been somewhat tense because she did not do any business.

In many ways, I have the feeling that Bella just doesn't know how to respond.  She still doesn't wag her tail.  Just now, when we were walking back to my house, we passed within inches of a dead squirrel (no doubt one of the ones with the inadvisable escape route) and Bella didn't even sniff, let alone glance.

I think about my friend's suggestion that Bella needs to form new neural pathways.  Bella was able to alter her walk (with my encouragement in the form of running) so that we now use the driveway, and not the perimeter of the yard, as we approach my house.  It only took a couple of days to establish this new, dry footed pattern.  Would it be helpful for me to start guiding her on new walks?