Nisha and Talía (Negreta and Lulú).... a journey.

[snowbunny]

Here's a video of the treat/retreat protocol we're using. I had to adapt it a bit because we can't separate the dogs at the moment to do it. You can see that Talia is getting really quite comfortable with me now, while Nisha is still rather feral!

 

[Cath]

Great work Fiona

 

[Stacia]

Talia is going to be so much easier, she is almost there already. I just wondered when you stepped forward to put the food on Nisha's station, the moving forward is scary for her? Could you have a central point between the food stations at which you stopped after feeding Talia and threw the food onto Nisha's station? Just a thought. You are doing a wonderful job and I admire you tremendously.

 

[Joy]

Oh wow, Talia does look really comfortable. Poor Nisha - at least you don't have to worry about the barking annoying your neighbours!

 

[HAH]

This is really fascinating, thanks for posting. Loving how Talia is already responding to your signals and seems quite comfortable in your company, that’s fabulous. And I thought there was quite a quick improvement for Nisha; after the 3rd time you put food on her station, she stopped running back to her safe spot and just circled, and the penultimate time in the clip she was stepping towards you as you were approaching. Her vocals changed too, she seemed to get into the rhythm pretty quickly. This will take so much patience but looks promising

 

[snowbunny]

I just wondered when you stepped forward to put the food on Nisha's station, the moving forward is scary for her? Could you have a central point between the food stations at which you stopped after feeding Talia and threw the food onto Nisha's station?

This is the first stage of the treat/retreat protocol by Suzanne Clothier. Yes, Nisha is getting a bit scared by me moving towards her, but she has free rein to move away as much as she needs to feel comfortable. She's learning that me moving towards her isn't a bad thing, and that I move away again immediately. We have to move towards her in daily life (poo picking etc) and so we're having to try to work on that being something that can have a good outcome, even if she's uncomfortable with it. This distance between the beds was the limit where Nisha was able to eat at first. You can see in the video that she is now eating well before I reach the other bed, so she is improving. And the latency with which she moves towards the station is far less than it was, too. So although she looks very uncertain still, this is a big improvement on where we were.
We're now ready to bring the beds a step closer together, and continue like that for a few days. Once I'm a metre away, I will stay in place and start tossing the food, so rather than me moving towards the dog, the dog will move towards me.

It's all in the plan

 

[snowbunny]

For comparison, here is Nisha on day 1, when we were still trying to do them separately. You can see how much farther away I need to be before she will approach the mat and eat, a nd how much slower she was to approach the food:

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

It seems that Talia is good to have with Nisha not only to help her but to help you as well. By that I mean that Nisha is going to take longer, but the fact that Talia has already made so much progress has to be encouraging for you.

 

[Atemas]

Wow amazing - in such a short time. Aren’t they just so lucky?

 

[snowbunny]

It seems that Talia is good to have with Nisha not only to help her but to help you as well. By that I mean that Nisha is going to take longer, but the fact that Talia has already made so much progress has to be encouraging for you.

Massively!

I can look at these videos and see the changes in Nisha based on measurable data, but she doesn't really "feel" any different right now, and I don't think she will for a very long time. She just doesn't trust us AT ALL. Whereas Talia clearly does, and the changes in her are remarkable in such a short time. So that's very encouraging. We obviously went into this being very pragmatic about outcomes and how long anything was going to take, so it's not that it's a problem with Nisha's slower progress, but on the other hand seeing so clearly what a difference we're having to Talia's mental wellbeing is lovely.

 

[Loraseal]

I know it is mostly physical awareness based training at the moment but I just wondered if you speak to them in Spanish as well as English?
Fantastic progress for both of them in such a short time.
Well done Fiona it gave me a huge smile!

 

[snowbunny]

I just wondered if you speak to them in Spanish as well as English?

Not really. We might use the odd word (eg guapas) but it's 99.999% English. Some of the daily volunteers at the shelter are English speakers anyway, so it won't be unfamiliar to them.

 

[Cath]

I just find watching this so amazing and interesting. Thank you so much Fiona for sharing this with us.

 

[Candy]

So interesting to watch. I love Talia's enthusiastic squeaks! It does make me wonder what happened to poor Nisha in the past to make her so very fearful.
Well done for doing a wonderful thing.

 

[Stacia]

Talia may give Nisha confidence. I would imagine that Talia has had some domestic life, whereas Nisha probably hasn't and perhaps always been in kennels? I read years ago, that dogs who had not been socialised by 12-16 weeks, i.e kennelled with little or non human intervention, could never lose their fear. I believe there is always hope and Nisha has had some human contact in the rescue kennels. If anyone can get a success it will be you @snowbunny. At the very least she will have a much better life now.

 

[Boogie]

What a wonderful thing you are doing

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

It does make me wonder what happened to poor Nisha in the past to make her so very fearful.

This made me think about Carbon and I "talking" last night. I told him I wished he could tell me what his life was before I met him...then I thought, "Nope, probably best that we don't know that after all".

 

[kateincornwall]

What a fantastic achievement already , these girls are so very lucky to have come to you both , bless youx

 

[jazzmynn]

I love what you and J are doing for the girls, and follow your thread with interest.

 

[Granca]

Talia looks increasingly comfortable, even by lingering to see if she can take Nisha’s treat, but then happily trotting after you to her mat. There’s certainly progress from that first video with Nisha too, as although she’s barking, she’s not backing off that far and isn’t at all wary about taking the treat. Keep the videos coming! (I had to turn the sound down because Tuppence kept nudging the ipad!)