Holiday Sofas
It was the fourth new sofa for Cerise in as many days. Within minutes of entering the room, her tail high, her face inquisitive, she had leapt up onto it, settled down comfortably, giving every impression she felt right at home. She had never been in that particular house before. Nor my mum’s the day before, nor the hotel lounge in Wales, two days prior. She had also never looked as happy in new places as she did then. It was precious seeing her gaze sleepily across the living room at her sister Angel, standing hesitantly at the door.
Eight years and three months on from her adoption, Cerise has just enjoyed a travelling holiday in the UK. One where her happiness and confidence was on full display. Over the course of two weeks we drove more than two thousand miles visiting friends and family across six different counties. When we weren’t in our campervan, we stayed in their homes. None of the dogs have ever experienced such a concentration of changes in environment and people around them. I anticipated it might be challenging but my assumptions as to how and why proved wrong.
I thought Angel would love it – she’s our most confident and extrovert. Albert Claude would be happy wherever I was, but would need plenty of reassurance with each new event, or person in his space. And Cerise would be cautious, keep herself to herself and require protection and sensitivity around the many changes she would encounter.
One out of three assumptions were right: Albert. With his sisters, the reverse proved correct.
Cerise was bold and confident in each new location. She delighted us with how at ease she was with different, often unknown (to her) people. She happily pushed herself forwards for attention, something we have never seen her do before. We couldn’t have been happier for our once deeply troubled Cerise.
Angel, on the other hand, our reliably confident, normally anxiety-free dog, showed many more signs of struggling to adapt. The frequent changes of location and company which I thought wouldn’t faze her for a moment, did exactly that. She took longer to settle in at each new place and sought me out for comfort and reassurance. This is something we rarely see her need these days.
Our dogs never fail to keep me thinking, observing and trying to do better for them.
Where the girls did conform to expectations was during a busy social walk we included in the trip. Angel loved the big, noisy event, and thrived in the thick of it. Cerise did not. Placed in a busy place with a lot of dogs and many strange people and her old responses surfaced. She couldn’t cope with the numbers of people milling around, it made her edgy and anxious. She needed to stay apart from it all, which Michel ensured she did. I knew the walk might challenge her, but with the confidence of preceding days, to see the extent of her struggle surprised me. And it wasn’t a case of some dogs dislike crowds. For Cerise it is a deeply ingrained response. It is a result of the deprivation, fears and neglect and completely abnormal life she endured in the breeding industry.
Albert strutted along the walk like he’s been doing these things his whole life. Rather than living a secluded, quiet one in France! He was happy and that made me very, very happy to witness.
My dogs are the best tutors I could ever have for supplying a lifetime of lessons in never taking anything for granted. I would have bet that Angel would have taken the whole trip in her stride. She did not. And Cerise would need coaxing and ample reassurance. She did not. I would never have imagined that it would be Cerise showing Angel how to climb onto a stranger’s lovely comfy sofa in a hotel lounge – where no dogs are normally allowed but nobody dared say no to her.
Our last day was spent with my mum, making the most of cuddled up companionship, afternoon telly, a sofa to spread out on and treats on demand. A perfect end to an on-the-move holiday.
