Kiesha's story

Excellent,

Given that the house is under offer and we are about to move it might be best to try this once she's settled in the new place?

This has been on going for three years so a few months wont put me up nor down and i'd really like to give it the best shot in a settled environment.

Do you agree James? I'm very keen to try but don't want to set her up to fail under pressure from other environmental factors that will unsettle her anyway, do you see my point?

I agree, you will have more than enough on your plate as it is......

Wait until your settled again, which from my memories of moving house is spending weeks and months opening card board boxes....

James i have yet to even find a house = EEK !!

I know it sounds easy but its not. *sigh* Mostly the case is house 1 is ideal for 1 thing, house 2 is ideal for another and house 3 is ideal for another.

I'm aware there is no such thing as the pefect house but oh boy its hard to find one within budget that ticks 'most' of the boxes for us and the dogs, no wonder people get stressed, lucky for us we like a drink

Hi James

We have purchased a house and move in mid June, since word got out that we are moving we have had a lot more visitors than normal and Kiesha is spending a lot of time upstairs not happy at all with the change in daily routine and traffic through the house. Do you think i should just start to introduce the diet now to help her over this rough patch?

Hi Liz,

It could be worth a try, like I said I have no idea if it will work its just something I picked up from Shaun......

Possibly another way of looking at it is accepting that she is nervous type and as long as she has somewhere to go and feel safe then its not all that bad, the fact that she goes into avoidance mode when things get to a level where she feels uncomfortable is far better than it coming out in fear aggression.....as long as people leave her alone and let her 'join' in when she feels more confident and tension and excitement are at a level she can naturally handle......

If your like me the problem here in a way could be you, for me I would find it very hard knowing my dog was 'hiding' somewhere because she felt uncomfortable, unless she had a cold hearted human owner (as before) it would be hard for anyone knowing there dog was unhappy, but I always find with nervous types its usually best to ignore them until they come to you.....

Perhaps you could try controlling the environment more, ie just ask the visitors to remain quite and relaxed until she has had time to 'get to know them', perhaps ask them to have a piece of cheese in their hand (or her fav treat etc) and totally ignore her, with strict instructions of no eye contact, no talk (to her directly) and no touch and let her explore them, after that let them give her the cheese, but they must ignore her completely for the whole of the visit and maybe ignore her for the next two visits at least......then I would say she could be touched, then spoken to and eye contact last of all.........but do it in slow steps one at a time and not all at once.....ie perhaps stroke her after the 3rd visit, talk to her 4th visit.....eye contact 5th visit.........

I know it can be difficult to get some humans to follow these rules, any mistakes made and you go back to square one and start again....

From what you told me before even with cheese in their hands she may not come and investigate.

If she is really frightened by the visits I think its likely she would pee and or poop, if thats the case perhaps you might want to limit the visits or at least ask people to calm down a bit......difficult I know......

There was a GSD I used to know who was similar nervous type, from memory it took 4 or 5 visits to the house before she would come out from behind the sofa where she used to hide when anyone she didnt know entered the house......after that she was fine........

Hi James

Good advice as always, thing is nobody is actually invited they are all just turning up at the door, you'd think i was leaving the country and not just moving a few villages away, bless em, everybody means well and they all know what Kiesha's like so they are by and large ignoring her.

As you say i just to some extent have to accept that's the way she is, i dislike her routine being interupted but accept its inevitable during moving home. No accidents as yet so she's coping so far. If only she knew about the land she's about to have and that its all going to be worth it in the end.