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Tara - 11 year old Collie Cross
By Shona HillImagine if you will, a little blonde
collie cross sweet as honey with the temperament to match; soft and golden. Ever since I
adopted her from a shelter as a puppy Tara has been a slightly nervous dog.
As the years have gone on she has grown in confidence and
with some careful care and training has developed into one of the loveliest little dogs
you could ever meet. With those she knows, she is outgoing, clever and easily trained, but
still has a hint of nervousness around strangers, both human and canine.
Fireworks remain Tara's biggest fear. Her extreme reactions
have ranged from shaking uncontrollably, panting heavily, 'digging' carpets and sofas,
hiding in the divan drawer under our bed and once even climbing into the washing machine
in an attempt to flee the terror that surrounds her. The stress Tara endured was heart
breaking and very upsetting to myself and my husband John. |
As September turned to October I was
already starting to feel the dread of not only 5th November but the weeks leading up to it
as fireworks are no longer only restricted to Bonfire Night. This is what prompted me to
contact The One Show which was airing on BBC1. I'd seen Sarah Fisher do wonderful things
with animals on the show and also wanted to know if other owners were experiencing the
same problems.
I was surprised to learn that not only was
this a very common problem but there were other dogs with even more extreme reactions, and
was delighted to hear that Sarah was going to join us to give us some help.
Our day with Sarah was fantastic. Sarah
instantly recognised some signs in Tara that she commonly finds in noise sensitive dogs;
signs I had noticed but didn't realise were connected to her concerns. Tara has never
liked her paws being touched nor had she liked being stroked on her hind quarters.
Sarah explained that I should allow Tara to
'den' in her chosen place (provided it was safe) which in her case was under my bed. I
needed to make her den comfortable and allow her to find sanctuary there if she needed. I
had been trying to coax her out every time she shot under the bed because it upset me to
see her under there but this was probably reinforcing her concerns.
Everything we talked about during our session
with Tara has helped, but, by far the way most effective way of easing Tara's stress is
the TTouch technique that Sarah taught me. This gentle method of using body work TTouches
visibly reduces her symptoms, and has also helped me to stay calm as it gives us both
something to think about rather than merely focusing on the fireworks. Sarah had also
introduced Tara to the body wrap and it certainly worked and she also showed me a doggy
T-Shirt as another alternative to the wrap.
There were already positive changes on the
first evening following Sarah's visit. A large rocket went off over head and Tara, who was
wearing her wrap, came over to me and sat beside me on the sofa instead of diving under
the bed in the other room. I did Ear Slides and she settled.
Tara and I are continuing to use TTouch very
successfully and enjoying every minute of it. We never leave home without Tara's T-Shirt
and it is a quick and easy method of reducing the stress level in Tara. I also keep up
with the TTouch body work. We have managed to get through various scary times, like
Christmas, New Year and noisy football games using this approach. It even helped when we
realised the crackers on the Christmas table were causing stress.
Huge thanks go to Sarah for providing me with
an effective remedy to Tara's problems.
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