The Foster Report: Turtle Gardens Fosters in Safe and Sound

It was a late night picking up the crew. Not quite ten and we were at the drop-off point, along with Peter and Cheryl who were picking up Graelee. Brian (forgive me if it wasn't Brian) plopped a very sleepy Graelee in Cheryl's arms and within a few minutes they were off with their little munchkin, all smiles. They also gave us, Dave and Brian some AWESOME cinnaon buns.

Jerrad and I loaded up our massive amount of food (how much do you think a little pomX eats!), some shampoo -much appreciated-, and went to grab the dogs. Little Dayo was rip-roaring to go, running around like a little nut in the back of the van and happy to have company again. But, with all that energy, I picked him up and plopped him in Jerrad's arms and he instantly made himself happy. Good, cause 10:30 is my bedtime, and although I would have dealt with playful puppy, I wasn't overly in the mood for it!

Next we unloaded Martha for Meshum. Lovely, lovely dog. A little shy, but very much wanted to be petted. Squirmed her way up to anybody. Its a good thing she didn't come home with me! She's the kind of dog that's not allowed to come home with me with the very serious threat of be adopting and not having an extra foster space :P.

Martha loaded up easily, cuddled up next to Beckett and was set.

And then came Trunk. Dave 'warned' me this was basically as feral as they come, and the hardest dog they've ever sent to anybody to foster (for the record, I wasn't sure whether to feel utterly terrified, or greatly complimented. Which meant, my ego was kind of confused, but at a good level :P).

And then the little side story I didn't hear :P
Dave (to Yvette) "What are you we going to do with that one?" -meaning Trunk
Yvette: Oh, we'll send her to Emily.

Good to know guys! (Again, complimented and feeling a wee bit terrified)

That said, I put the emotions on the backburner and after Dave managed to get Trunk to the end of the van, I scooped her up. She shut down immediately on the grass. A good massage and a good sniff later, I hoisted her up again and away we went.

Trunk settled on my lap, Dayo settled on top of Trunk, and away we went to drop off Martha (who I kind of just wanted to bring home since it was late, but I knew full well the danger of bringing her home for 'just one night')

Martha walked off with Meshum lickity split, but gave me a kiss goodbye! That is one SWEET dog.

And off we headed home. And I was in luck, I managed to get Trunk to walk herself from the car to the yard. Small progresses. And, she was also very interested in sniffing the cinnamon buns -extra progress.

Trunk bucked on her leash and got out of her collar in the yard (thank god it was the yard!) and led us a bit of a chase. She'd never go far enough away to not see us, but we couldn't get close to her either. Finally, some raw food in the house lured her in. She ate, found a comfy spot and zonked out for the night.

I stayed up a bit and did some more massage with her while Jerrad went to bed. Dayo -god love him- went into his crate with only two annoyed barks and slept right through the night 11:30-6:30. Jerrad got up to pee, brought Dayo outside where he prompty peed, pooed and found a pinecone to play with. Trunk was still ZONKED so I didn't bother moving her -she'd peed sometime in the middle of the night anyway, and Jerrad so kindly wiped it up without a fuss, even after stepping in it. (Those are some serious brownie points coming his way!)

So, back to bed with me. And what did I find after I went pee myself! Dayo in bed with Jerrad!

Me: "You said no dogs allowed in the bed."
Jerrad: "I meant at night."
Me: "Sure, sure."

So, I climbed back into bed determined to get a few more hours of sleep. And what did I find when I rolled over at 8:00. Trunk sleeping beside the bed. AWESOME! So, she most definitely wants to be around people, but she's going to have to have things go nice and slow. So, since everybody was still sleepy, I got a nice sleep in until 9:00 day. Did some massage work with Trunk, and also began getting that tail out from between her legs. Its amazing, providing you have calm energy, what holding a dog's head and tail up will do. If even for those few minutes, they switch their energy and slowly come out of their shyness. 10 minutes of this and Trunk was holding her up head up confidently by herself -her tail I still needed to help with.

So, off I went to take Dayo out again. Trunk is still dragging her leash (even inside at the moment) and within a few minutes was outside too. She peed, and got down to some lounging in the weeds. I left her there for a few minutes, made sure Dayo wasn't going to eat anything -he likes to chew on the pinecones and chase them if they're close enough to hi-m and then slowly made my way sideways over to Trunk. She let me sit with her and pet her, and hold her tail up. She really likes to be massaged in the neck -no wonder, if I looked at my toes all day long my neck would be pretty sore too! After a few minutes I grabbed the leash and, with her as the guide for directions, began walking in slow zigzags. A few times she bucked and I dropped the leash immediately.

Then, she began to realize I was trying to make her move forward. And something clicked in her. She didn't buck again -did stop dead a few times-, but we did a couple of slow loops around the yard. Whenever she stopped, I gave a gentle tug on the leash that would make her move on or two paws forward. And then she'd move again. A couple times she nudged my hand with her head, and the more we went, the closer she wanted to walk to me. 20-30 minutes of this, and we came back inside, where Trunk plunked right down on her towel. I think once she comes around a bit she'll be more playful, medium-energy, but the mental energy it requires to get past fear is very draining.

The plan for week 1 is no daycare, and getting comfortable inside the house and inside the yard. If we do this early enough, I'll move to walks around our little crescent. Next Monday she can start daycare, once she is ready for something new.

But, however slow it seems we might have to move, Trunk has a list of good qualities that are going to make it easier:
1) She doesn't have a problem meeting new people. She'll just keep her distance, but doesn't mind being handled.
2) She's food motivated. I'm going to bring out the hotdogs soon, and hopefully the clicker.
3) She's not aloof. She really does want to be with people -as evident that she snuck into the room and as she's learning the leash is a good thing, wants to be closer to me.
4) So far, she isn't really scared of weird noises or changes in her scenery. Despite her extreme shyness, she seems to have a 'go-with-the-flow' type of personality.

Regardless, even if I work a small bit of 'confidence magic' I know right off the bat Trunk is going to require a VERY patient, calm and quiet family to call her own. They're going to have to be a family that has some dog experience, hopefully some shy dog experience. She's ridiculously gentle though, so I think she'd love to have her own little girl. And she's quiet. She's quieter than Beckett even.

I have the feeling by two weeks she'll be a Toast. Comfortable in her small bubble, but nervous and shut down in the outside world. The goal is to have her prepared enough to go head to her new home around the same time as the reunion is taking place, but everything on its own time.

Shy guys require an odd blend of 'no expectations' and 'great expectations'. If you put a limit on them, they'll never be able to exceed it, but at the same time, you can't expect anything on a time schedule. So, we shall see! It's only day one :)

And some pictures of the new crew:

Trunk giving good eye contact.