Beanwood
Administrator
So Christmas wasn't so good for Otter. The last really big hurdle for her was always going to be visitors to the house.
We do have a visitor protocol in place,and we have have made huge inroads with the help of a few (female) friends who have popped round. Otter has a bit of anxiety when we have guests. In summary, this all stems from a couple of bad experiences at a young and sensitive age ( 3 - 4 months ) at the vet, followed by a lengthy rehab programme which complicated resolving this problem, mainly because she still had to endure vet visits. It got to a point where anything associated with "a vet" become part of her anxiety, so car, keys, handbag, coat, harness, collar, lead.......the list became painfully long! All these "things" predicted for Otter a very bad outcome. In addition, her prediction was quickly set in stone.
Combined with a visitor protocol, we have diet, medication, and a behaviour modification plan in place.
Today, we had phone call from my dear FIL, he is on his way! MIL found the marzipan.... (I know long story!!) and he was popping round to deliver it. We had one hours notice. OK ....not ideal for two reasons....1. Christmas day for Otter was horrid, and only 2 days ago....2. FIL was also male. Bit tricky. We decided to go for it. FIL briefed on the phone, no eye contact, low voice, enter into the kitchen, not the room Otter was in, whilst I work on Otter calmly...hubby would get FIL settled, then bring through to the front room.
I had Otter on a loose collar and a long thin lead, popped her on her bed and started feeding as hubby and FIL come in and quickly get comfy. I didn't want our visitor inadvertently "towering" over her. Otter is on her mat, which has a strong association with pleasurable and rewarding toys, food, kongs as well as being a safe place. Hubby also had a pot of treats to throw at Otter if she got too close. The aim of this meeting was to allow Otter to "notice" FIL, and then be heavily reinforced, whilst keeping her arousal level as low as possible. A point here, if it was not possible to feed Otter with FIL in the same room, we would've quickly moved him back into the kitchen whilst I played fun games. We also don't want FIL feeding Otter himself, we aren't quite at that stage yet. That would be asking for too much.
So here is a very short clip of some of our progress today, whilst yes, we have a bit of barking which we ignored, we also had some of this....
We have a long, long way to go, but in light of what happened on Christmas day, this brought joy to my heart.
We do have a visitor protocol in place,and we have have made huge inroads with the help of a few (female) friends who have popped round. Otter has a bit of anxiety when we have guests. In summary, this all stems from a couple of bad experiences at a young and sensitive age ( 3 - 4 months ) at the vet, followed by a lengthy rehab programme which complicated resolving this problem, mainly because she still had to endure vet visits. It got to a point where anything associated with "a vet" become part of her anxiety, so car, keys, handbag, coat, harness, collar, lead.......the list became painfully long! All these "things" predicted for Otter a very bad outcome. In addition, her prediction was quickly set in stone.
Combined with a visitor protocol, we have diet, medication, and a behaviour modification plan in place.
Today, we had phone call from my dear FIL, he is on his way! MIL found the marzipan.... (I know long story!!) and he was popping round to deliver it. We had one hours notice. OK ....not ideal for two reasons....1. Christmas day for Otter was horrid, and only 2 days ago....2. FIL was also male. Bit tricky. We decided to go for it. FIL briefed on the phone, no eye contact, low voice, enter into the kitchen, not the room Otter was in, whilst I work on Otter calmly...hubby would get FIL settled, then bring through to the front room.
I had Otter on a loose collar and a long thin lead, popped her on her bed and started feeding as hubby and FIL come in and quickly get comfy. I didn't want our visitor inadvertently "towering" over her. Otter is on her mat, which has a strong association with pleasurable and rewarding toys, food, kongs as well as being a safe place. Hubby also had a pot of treats to throw at Otter if she got too close. The aim of this meeting was to allow Otter to "notice" FIL, and then be heavily reinforced, whilst keeping her arousal level as low as possible. A point here, if it was not possible to feed Otter with FIL in the same room, we would've quickly moved him back into the kitchen whilst I played fun games. We also don't want FIL feeding Otter himself, we aren't quite at that stage yet. That would be asking for too much.
So here is a very short clip of some of our progress today, whilst yes, we have a bit of barking which we ignored, we also had some of this....
We have a long, long way to go, but in light of what happened on Christmas day, this brought joy to my heart.
