Brandy has been with us for nearly four months. I don’t know if using my friendly aid, the little stallion, is considered cheating a little. But because Baileys and I have grown quite fond of each other over the last year, Brandy is now equally eager for some of my attention and instead of me having to coerce her, she now waits in line for attention.
Man, this is good!
Haven’t done much at all for the last month or so yet made stacks of progress because of this little fellow. He has been quite a handful himself in the past but that’s a different story.
The desensitising is quite a large part of the training and obviously takes a lot of time. Brandy clearly needs to absorb and process each and every new sound, sight or smell a number of times before she’s OK with it. Looking back from four months ago till now, we’ve come a long way. In the early days, the only movement Brandy didn’t react to were the movement of clouds, wind, birds, hares and leaves, anything natural. By now she’s added lawn mowers and whipper snippers, loud music, playing children, pool noises, all kinds of different engine noises and whiffs of back burning bushes and wafting bbq’s. She’s not even jumping anymore when my sister is trialling her new exercise regime of rocketing down our drive way on a mini skate board.
So yeah, we’ve come a long way.
Plan B quite unexpectedly included spending very little time with Brandy for the last month. Which turned out to be just the right thing.
Baileys (our miniature stallion) begged us if he could please spend some more time with Brandy. Initially she snubbed him but when the tree lopper’s chain saw got going, Baileys became her refuge. Our neighbour’s weekly test of the roaring jetski motor saw her running to him for cover as well and within no time we found them cuddling up together at night. Baileys has become Brandy’s measure-of-normal.
Over the last few months Brandy has come to appreciate our neighbour’s love of rock and roll music. Like us, she isn’t that much into it but it doesn’t make her gallop to the end of the paddock any more either. But it is Bailey’s behaviour which teaches her that banging noises on shed walls and motor bikes and kids on skate boards and builders with rock grinders, annoying as they may be, are equally innocent noises.
It is Bailey’s rock solid, even-tempered and composed presence which calms Brandy down each and every time a new noise, sight or smell presents itself.
