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

snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
I just took Talia her dinner. She was curled up asleep on the sofa and didn't wake even as I was calling her from outside. So she got waiter service to the sofa. She was all blurry-eyed as I put her bowl down. She must be so used to Nisha letting her know as soon as anyone set a foot outside the house that she doesn't have her own internal alert system.

She and Squidge came nose to nose today, a bit by accident, but it was all totally uneventful. Hoping to push it on soon. I have scheduled a call with one of the other alumni from the institution where I did my behaviour training to do some brainstorming. She's incredibly smart and has worked in rescue in France for a long time, so very experienced with these more extreme issues. Hoping for a good conversation around things to try with Talia.
 
snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
No, I'm definitely not going to bring in another dog, I feel (even more) exhausted just thinking about it! I hope to get Talia moved in with us ASAP, but obviously that's all dependent on how she responds to any conditioning we're able to do with her. The ideal scenario for everyone is that she can get into the house. It will be a bit of a squeeze (she's by far the largest of all the dogs) but it will save a huge amount of time if she can get to the point of living with us, coming on walks with us etc. I don't expect it to be immediate, and it may never happen, but I hope it does. It will be better for all of us if we can get there. I will give it some time and see what happens.
 
snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
I'm starting to wonder if Talia has some hearing loss, or even if she's deaf. Both last night and this lunchtime she's been curled up on the sofa when I took her her food, and I was calling her from our gate, but nada. Even at the gate to her area, which rattles really loudly, there was no movement until I stepped through. Last night it was raining, and she's definitely a fair weather dog, but today's was unexpected. When she saw me, she came trotting out happily for her chicken. I'll have to watch the videos more closely from now on.

I talked to Emma earlier and we're of the same mind as to how to proceed with Talia, and we came up with some practical ideas for how to go about some things. She has a lot of experience with severely traumatised dogs, so fingers crossed.
 
Emily_Babbelhund

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
Location
Regensburg, Germany
snowbunny said:
I'm starting to wonder if Talia has some hearing loss, or even if she's deaf.
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Of course she could be deaf or partially deaf, but I also suspect that dogs who have spent a long time institutionalised can learn to turn off their hearing. Some become more sensitive to the point where they are super reactive (more like poor Nisha) and others just kinda of go "Nope, don't hear anything, la dee da". This seemed particularly the case with the Spanish mastins that I met in the shelter.

Not sure if you remember, but I also wondered about Carbon at the beginning. A bomb could go off next to him (or in his case the wind slamming a door) and he wouldn't react in the slightest. Also if I had to crate him, he wouldn't make a peep when I came home. It took 10 months before there was any reaction to his name. It's really only been in the last year that he's reacted to outside sounds, like another dog walking by outside.

Of course being a Labrador, his definitive hearing test proved to be reacting to a treat packet being opened. Heh, heh, not deaf at all, then? 😁
 
snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
Jacqui-S said:
Do you know anything at all about Talia's background?
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Nope, just the same as Nisha... at least 11 and a half years in the shelter, because she was there when Marce started volunteering there. Nothing more. It's even possible she was born in the shelter, as many of the nervous ones are.

@Emily_Babbelhund I had forgotten about that. My other thought was that Nisha had been her "ears" for so long that she's kinda forgotten how to use her own! Or maybe she was just deafened by the constant Nooing...
 
Heidrun

Heidrun

My first two springers were litter sisters. They were totally inseparable. When one of them died at age 11 I realised within a few days that the other one was totally deaf. I had no idea until then and no idea how long she had been deaf for. She really grieved after her sister’s death. It took several months for her to get better mentally.
 
Emily_Babbelhund

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
Location
Regensburg, Germany
snowbunny said:
My other thought was that Nisha had been her "ears" for so long that she's kinda forgotten how to use her own!
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Oh my gosh yes on depending on another dog for whatever it may be. I swear Brogan didn't have two brain cells until his Mama Jodhi passed away - he relied on her for EVERYTHING. Not that that's a bad thing - they were wonderful together - but he certainly came into his own once he had to think for himself. Nisha was a VERY reliable alert, so who could blame Talia for letting Nisha tell her what was going on?
 
snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
It was one of the things I talked about with Emma. Talia is obviously capable of building relationships with dogs (Nisha, Ginny) and so there's no reason she can't build relationships with the other three, given time. With younger dogs you wouldn't want that to be it: you would be careful of them becoming over-reliant on the other dogs and not building enough relationship with the human(s), but in this case, that really doesn't matter. If "all" she has is a social group of dogs and she looks to them for support and to "hide behind", then that's OK. She's an old lady and it's not something to stress about. For my part, I'm not looking to make her into another "pet dog". I already have enough adoration from the rest of them, I'm not going to worry if Talia is never able to do the same. I just want her to have the social support she needs to be content in her dotage, whatever that looks like.
 
snowbunny

snowbunny

Location
Andorra and Spain
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