Sheba
It’s easy for us to imagine that only humans are capable of suffering the consequences of a trauma, but when Sheba came into Charity care we all realised just how much dogs also are capable of being mentally disturbed and damaged by an event in their lives.
One evening in 2005, a call was received from a man in South Gloucestershire asking the Charity to take his sister’s GSD bitch into care as soon as possible. He went on to explain that his sister had been murdered and that Sheba had witnessed the brutal attack and apparently changed from being an outgoing, friendly dog into a ‘nervous wreck’ (his words). For all human situations doubtless there are counsellors specialising in help using tried and trusted methods, but for Sheba all we could do was provide lots of TLC and the time necessary to allow her to slowly regain confidence in humans, most especially men.
The following day Sheba was collected from her home and taken to one of the two emergency kennels at the Cheltenham Plant Centre. The two second-hand units were purchased by the Charity in 2001 and whilst they were set aside for ‘occasional use’ in emergencies, in 2005 for several months they were never empty.
As already explained, Sheba’s real fear was of men, and that needed to be addressed with kindness and understanding, no use trying to rush things. It was decided to place a chair in the kennel run so that Steve could spend half an hour or so whenever he could spare the time and sit with a cup of tea and read the newspaper whilst totally ignoring Sheba. It was a slow waiting game until gradually Sheba accepted Steve’s quiet presence and stopped rushing away to hide at the back of the kennel every time he approached.
He then started talking to her, offering a treat or a toy, throwing a ball and so on. Once she was thoroughly at ease with Steve the process was repeated with volunteer No.2 and, whilst she was always very wary of new people at first, she progressed quickly. Steve took Sheba for a veterinary check and she was immediately completely at ease with Stephen Crickmore’s calm approach, proving beyond doubt that great progress had been made in just a few weeks.
It was then decided that it would be good to try to place her in a home environment and approached John and Joan (two of our members from Cheltenham) whose shepherd had recently died.
Their dog had been ill for several months and required a great deal of special care, so obviously she left a huge gap in their lives and fortunately they had time to give. It was difficult to pluck up the courage to ask them to offer a home to Sheba so soon, even on a temporary basis. ‘Nothing staked, nothing gained’ as the saying goes, but after considering our request for just a few minutes they asked when they could come along to meet Sheba. A little nervous at first, but Sheba very soon warmed to them both and went home with them. It was meant to be a short-term foster home …. But guess what? Just a few days later John and Joan decided to adopt Sheba, so the story truly has a fairy tale ending and ‘they all lived happily ever after’.