Baby Steps

It was brought home to me with a bang (a big one) today how fragile Belle still is emotionally.  I've known since we adopted her how sensitive she is.  Oh, sure, she's a dominant little girl who can occasionally be aggressive with other female dogs, but when it comes to everything else, she is extremely sensitive.  We've worked hard with her over the last couple of years.  Positive reinforcement.  Praising her when she behaves, redirecting and sometimes gently scolding when she's naughty.  But yelling at her has always been something we perceived as counterproductive and a sure way to make her even more fearful than she already is.  If she feels loved, the confidence will come. 

It's easy to forget how fearful she really is deep inside.  Her bossy rough-housing of the cat and sister, Simba, would make her seem to the outsider as one confident little lady. We've come to see that it is, quite to the contrary, a manifestation of her insecurity.  She needs to do this to feel she is in control.

She has come a long way, this little yellow dog, but she is still on a journey.  The road to confidence is long and winding with the occasional detour that, so far, we have been able to steer back on course.

While a year ago she would not willingly approach anyone but Pete or me, she now will go immediately to my mom and to one of our friends (who, coincidentally is mommy to Jose, her best four-foot friend).  Baby steps.

We had over 20 people at our house for three days straight (5 or 6 of them overnight) over Labor Day Weekend.  We initially asked the vet for something to help keep her anxiety as low as possible.  He gave us a couple of low-dose Prozacs.  We used it the first day, and she did so well that we did not feel we needed to give it to her the other two days.  While she tended to avoid the crowds, she would once in a while approach someone who was sitting quietly and ignoring her, usually a woman.  More baby steps.

And then today.  Sigh.  My poor baby girl.  I was stepping over her to leave my office when she decided to jump up.  My foot caught her in the back part of her side hard, and I went flying over her, hitting my side on the edge of the daybed on my way down.  (That would be the big bang I referred to in my opening sentence.)

While it hurt a lot, and I'm sure I will be suffering innumerable stiff and sore muscles tomorrow, I'm more distressed by Belle's reaction.  Amazingly, I never yelled.  Not even as I was going down.  She just sat there and looked at me with distress in her bright eyes.  I think somehow she understood that I was in a lot of pain and that she had something to do with it.  (I should have had far more sense than to try to step over a dog when there is ample room to go around.)  I had to cajole her to come over to me.  I patted her and checked her over to make sure I had not done her any harm when my foot caught her in tummy.  She seemed fine physically.  But she was shaking.  I hugged her and spoke softly.

"It's okay, Belle.  Poor little Boo-Boo.  I know you didn't mean to hurt Mommy."

I finally got up and went to sit down for a moment.  She came in and, with encouragement from me, climbed up into my lap on the recliner.  We sat that way for a few minutes as I continued to speak softly to her and rub her tummy.  Then I had to go back to work.  I noticed later that she was lying in the sun outside and seemed afraid to come to me when I called her.  I finally got her to come.  She is lying at my feet as I write.  She is still bowing her head with her her "helmut ears" and presenting me with her belly whenever I approach her, though.  My poor little Boo. 

By tomorrow morning, hopefully she will have forgotten the whole incident and be her usual exuberant self.  And we will continue to encourage her with gentle words and lots of love.  Even the longest trip can be made with lots and lots of Baby Steps.