Tackling the Challenge, Pt 3

Covering the last three bullets, constructive mental stimulation, deprogramming 11 years of experiences, and how to enjoy life as a dog, shows how we need to take Lisa into a different direction mentally. Pulling her away from her past and bringing her more into the present is the goal. Like the first six sets of challenges, these are not easy, either, but the rewards are astounding. Here is where we see Lisa truly blossom.

Awakening her sleepy brain is something that is essential to long term success. Her life until now has been boring - practically the same thing day after day. For working dogs and most dogs in general, the lack of adequate mental stimulation has been linked to destructive and anti-social behaviors. Can you imagine how dull life must been confined to a pen or cage? The only interactions you ever get is from the dogs on either side of you, that you may or may not even see. Then add, the routine breedings, cycle after cycle. Doesn't sound like fun to me? This life is the life puppy mill dogs live; human interaction is minimal and usually unpleasant.

To tackle the challenge of awakening Lisa's sleepy brain, it was helpful to look back at puppy experiences and use those as launching point for helping Lisa. Exposing her to different sounds, different surface textures, different smells and even different tastes reach different areas of her atrophied brain and encourage new synapse creation. For sounds, the television is useful as is CDs, like "dog show" noise as it has a variety of sounds. Exposing Lisa to different tastes was a fun one. For this, giving her different types of foods to sample helped to accomplish not only different tastes, but smells and textures, too. The food samples were small and always something she could easily digest even with the few teeth she has. Some food examples that were given included oranges, freeze dried fruits, fresh strawberries, beef jerky, chicken, steak, marshmellows, ice cubes, and others. These were not given all at once, but intermittently over a week or two. I used essential oils to help with smells, in addition to just being creative. Textures, just like with puppies, getting Lisa used to walking on different types of surfaces, concrete, grass, tile, carpet and wood flooring.

Deprogramming 11 years of experiences, I wish I could say is easy. It would be nice to sprinkle a little something in her food to make her unlearn all her behaviors from the past. We already know rescue dogs like to forget the past and do their best to put it behind them. Situations put them back into instances where they are forced to "remember". Unfortunately and fortunately, time, patience, and consistency are the only things that will truly help Lisa forget her past. In the months she has been fostering with us, we have seen an slow, but steady improvement. One example, Lisa will walk through a door ahead of me. When she first came here she wouldn't do that and now she does. She has unlearned a past experience and learned that its safe and "okay" to go ahead when told to do so. That, to me, is progress.

Enjoying life as a dog is the only challenge that Lisa will have to truly discover for herself. This life skill is where a dog discovers who they really are as a dog - their own dog, so to speak. Up until now, Lisa's life had been dictated. Yes, she did exist and was still her "own dog", but that's all, she EXISTED. She had no joy, no fun, nothing to celebrate, and nothing to make those gorgeous brown eyes sparkle. Once you've seen that celebration of life in a dog, you can easily recognize it in dogs who don't have it. For example, look at the eyes of a dog who has their prized ball in their mouth; there's enough sparkle in those eyes to power the sun! Or a dog who is rolling on the floor with feet pointing in all directions just enjoying a moment of pure bliss. Lisa and dogs like her don't know what that's like. They have been robbed of those joyous moments.

Happily, I get to report that Lisa is slowly discovering who she is as a dog. Each day spent with her reveals more and more of her personality. As she continues to feel more secure in her environment, she's opening up. One of her favorite activities is roll on the floor. At first, she'd do it where no one was watching her, as if she was embarrassed. She didn't know I was watching her. When she was done, she'd look around to see if anyone saw what she was doing. As time has past, she has lost her inhibition and now will free roll on the floor wherever and whenever she wants. The look on her face is that of pure joy. Brings tears to my eyes to see it.