Bless her, she was called Moira till about, well no, no, how long have had her? Since May last year
and she definitely chose me and I do believe that, you know, animals come into your life
for a reason so you know the connection was there straight away. I went to a rescue place,
I didn't like the feeling of that place at all. I couldn't work it out this is an animal rescue
place this should feel good but I didn't and she couldn't get in my car quick enough. I'd only gone
to have a look and she came home with me. She is really nervous, very mistrusting and I did realise
once I started to change the way I was talking to her this year that probably for the first six
months of her life here, she never really wagged her tail. She never, she was that on alert all the
time, she's on alert all the time. She's obviously got the Collie instincts to round up and she
rounds up the cats and the horses. Now, with the cats, if one of the cats is sat on there, she'll
lie that's not a problem, in fact she could have a cat right the way close to her. The two cats can
no problem as soon as the cat comes near me, she's rounding him up. She straight away, she can't
relax at all, you know, she's straight into that mode. When we're at the yard, she's barking at
anything and everything that goes past in fact even as we walk into the yard, she barks at
anything. Anybody I talk to, she barks but the worst thing and the thing that I worry about I guess,
which I've tried not to worry about is within 24 hours of me having her, she attacked a lamb. Okay.
Now, fortunately the farmer was really chilled about it and she drew blood on him but
but I saw her go, she jumped over the gate, well through the gate and so I managed to get
there not that long after and even though I'd only named her Gypsy within 24 hours of this happening,
she did actually come back to me once I got up to where she was. So I was sort of pleased that she
come back to me but then I had a lamb dripping with blood, which was a bit scary but the farmer's
wife came out and I'd wrapped it up with vet wrap and all the rest of it and I sent
it loads of healing, I've never healed a lamb before but I sent so much healing that night,
please don't die, he would heal healing and the lamb was okay and the farmer was chilled about it
but she does attack, I mean, I've kept her away from lambs and when in fields with sheep
I put her on a lead but she does the same thing with dogs and I can't work out, well, it's
obviously an energy thing. She wants to go and play and she's with my friend's dog, she plays
for ages, she's really sweet and I think a lot of the time she wants to go but because there's now
a worry in me that she's done this a few times to the point where somebody- Your anxiety-
Well, somebody local said to me that they would report her and have her put down if she did it
one more time. I've got the whole of my yard now fenced off so at least she can run free in that,
you know, and I am a lot more calmer now because I mean, I think she could probably jump the gate but
she's choosing not to at the moment so I'm calm about the fact that I can let her off the lead
there but when we're out walking or if another dog comes, I don't know whether she wants to get
to that dog to play with it or whether it's in this five percent or even maybe less, when
she wants to get to it and have a go at it and I don't know why. Like, my farrier has a little dog,
that dog's come for ages and she's been fine, it came about a month ago, she went for it
so I know I am nervous, I agree, I am nervous but only because I don't want her to get in
any more trouble now but I need to find a way where I can introduce her to the dogs
because I think a lot of it is she wants to be friendly a lot of the time but for some unknown
reason every now and again, she attacks. Okay, well, just from from our experience,
what tends to happen, you've got a ball somewhere haven't you? Now she can be a bit of a, she's
persistent I'm afraid, we might just have to ignore her because even if you picked it up she
really- Oh no, no. Probably just continue the game. So what tends to happen is when
a dog has a high energy so a nervous energy, we look at feeling levels so thoughts produce
feelings and if if you're nervous or excited and you go towards another dog,
which is going quickly because that's what happens, her understanding of that socialness is
not there because you don't approach, you don't approach a dog quickly.
No, she hasn't got that at all. So what happens is that some dogs will be okay with that,
some will really react and they might have a feeling when she approaches,
that will make her nervous and by the time she gets there there's a reaction because
they'll be reacting to her. It's almost like a person coming and meeting you and coming
right up into your face and you feel a bit on guard. Yeah. So often, you know, this can happen
when dogs are very excited to be with other dogs, they go oh brilliant!
She wants to go. And then unfortunately what happens is that that dog
feels a bit defensive, there might be a little bit of a stance, she's incredibly sensitive, she
picks up on that and then already you right in the space and there can be a reaction. So what we
need to teach her is that she needs to approach a dog with a calm mind.
Yes. Then she'll be able to see what's really there, you know, rather than running in headless,
we need to be able to get her to slow down. We look at calm, peaceful. Yeah because when she does
that, I realise if I screamed after her that just makes the situation worse but then I got
in trouble with some of the locals that she was doing because I was only calling her back calmly
and she will come back eventually but then they think I'm not taking my responsibility seriously
because I was not taking it seriously enough but I just realised, I got nervous, that just made
the whole situation worse. Yeah, absolutely. So what we're going to look at is in that scenario,
doesn't matter how calm you are, unfortunately at that moment her mind is so busy she can't even
hear you, you know, so we reduce the thinking levels so that they're in a listening state
and in a listening state, well, she will be able to hear you even if you're not even saying anything,
you know, she'll be very aware of you. So we go through a stepping process of showing her the
present moment, creating what we call an invisible lead, which is actually sitting there,
getting her nice and calm, moving away and she'll get up and then we'll repeat it, she'll probably
get up a couple of times, we'll repeat it and as we go away what will happen is that she'll observe
everything that you're doing. It's a very strong effect of creating an invisible lead and we do
that inside first then we do it outside and we introduce to her that when she's outside, she
can also listen. This is what creates a moment when you see her mind going up and you called her,
you would have already trained her to be in a listening state so she would hear you and come
so we're not training actions, we're training listenability.
She knows lie down, she knows stay
and when it's just me and her in an open field, she'll do it till the cows come home.
It's when there's other stuff around that that's something. So
the next step is that you're actually going to show her that not just sitting but you're going
to deliver a feeling to her, which is actually a very, very low peace of mind feeling. Oh, that's
nice. Now, this process is going to be interesting, she's nice and relaxed now, we've been talking about her.
She's already twitching, she's gone into quite a healing state so I would say she's
very aware of what's going on because I don't feel this is her normal behaviour when you're chatting
with someone. Not with somebody else, no. She would, funnily enough, when I come back from the yard, she
will often do that with me if, you know, wherever I am going to the office or will go in the dining
room to have some lunch, she'll just lie next to me and go sit but not when there's somebody else.
If there's somebody else around, she's on alert.
This is a different type of lying down, you know, the twitching, she's actually
quite a long way away already, which is lovely and it just shows to me that she's sensitive.
She didn't use to do this at first, it's taken a long time to get to the point where
she would start to relax like this. She was one of those that, you know, they say dogs sleep with
one eye open, she was like that. What we're- Sash, enough. It's all about me!
Getting all the attention. What this is basically doing is you're just
having a way of delivering a peaceful feeling so that she can understand what you're asking. You
know, it's the same with us. If we're anxious about something, can we hear the solution?
No. No, we just hear what will bring more anxiety, you know, there's a law of attraction there. Yeah,
that's true. I believe that your intuition is based on how you feel so when somebody says they
want to really use their intuition I say which one? Because actually if you're anxious, if you're
late for something and you're really anxious, you go, I'll go that way. Well, your intuition is going
well, go that way because you're feeling anxious so we give you more of that, that's the wrong
direction so off you go. And interestingly, this is what I would
do with the teenagers that I'm working with, I calm the whole situation down before I ever even try to.
Absolutely so this is going to be so relative, you know, you can be with a teenager and it doesn't
matter how much they explode as long as you stay calm. You don't have to say anything with them
and actually, if you keep it there, keep holding that space for them, they will start releasing
and they'll calm down until you can talk again. That is exactly the same as this.