Hi Cath,
Talia is currently on her holibobs!
We obviously can't take her with us to Andorra, so we considered whether it would be best to board her somewhere, or have whoever stays here take care of her.
We had a word with N, the lady who did some work with me and Shadow before the Covid crap hit the fan. She is a dog trainer, has extensive experience with shelter dogs, and boards dogs. Normally the dogs board in her house, and that's clearly not quite possible for Talia right now, but she's there for a week's trial to see how it goes and, hopefully, it will work out so that she can be there over the winter.
N has six dogs of her own: three Malis, one pittie, one small Sharpei mix and a boxer. Other than the boxer, who is a five-month-old bundle of life, the others are all elderly and (relatively) sensible. The exception is one of the Malis, who is kept separate from the others because she can be unpredictable. We took Talia and introduced her to the dogs one at a time - everything was very appropriate and she's keen to interact with them. She is currently spending her time in the courtyard outside the kitchen. We have given her several options for sleeping, and she's choosing to sleep in a covered crate at night. Adjoining the courtyard is a very large garden: the dogs are free to roam in and out and around during the day. The hope is that Talia will choose to follow them into the house at some point.
We know that Talia takes comfort from the presence of other dogs, and learns about interacting with people from watching those people interact with other dogs, so N is giving her dogs loads of cuddles and attention. I really hope that this set-up will be a catalyst for getting Talia to be a house dog, and that we'll be able to integrate her into our home when we come back. But, we will have to suck it and see.
For now, it seems to be going OK, but it's very early days.