Flannel flower for Twinkle Berry
Thought it time we did a little update on how Susie-Belle’s sister Twinkle Berry is getting along. She has now been with us nearly 5 months and progress with her is slow. She is still highly anxious around humans, even us in the house, and when approached scoots away to avoid being touched, or in her mind we think “caught”. It is sad to think of the torment and trauma that she must have experienced in the puppy farm to leave her so fearful of people but we try not to let ourselves feel sad, we keep trying to get her to move forwards with her life now in the ways we know how.
There are some positive things that we notice, when she is out and about on our walks, she is a happy, relaxed and normal acting dog, she loves her walks. We are encouraging her to explore and run as much as she wants to now that we have learned to trust that she will return to us and she does come close to us if something makes her worried, all good signs of her relating and bonding with us. But, go to approach her, and she’s straight back into high anxiety. One rather funny thing is that she does seem to enjoy having a bath, fortunate as she also likes to have a roll in stinky goo wherever she can find it.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to take her to our homeopathic vet to see what he could offer to help with her healing. After an hour of chatting, with him assessing her, watching her, sitting with her and asking me what might seem to the uninitiated, random questions, he gave me a remedy which he hoped might help settle her touch aversion and anxiety. He did make some very interesting observations and helped me to think about her in ways that I hadn’t considered. I’m rather overwhelmed at times by the responsibility of caring for Twinkle but not being able to do what I instinctively yearn to do, which is to pick her up, cuddle her close and stroke away her fears. The fear she shows is so overt it is easier to miss other aspects of her personality, which he picked out for me. For example, one thing she has started to do in recent weeks is to bark at me quite intently when she thinks it’s her dinner time, or when she sees me starting to prepare her food, she’ll do the same in the mornings when she is ready to get up and thinks I should be up to. She only barks at me and she is definitely communicating directly with me. I haven’t tried to shush her yet, I’m hoping it will just settle in time, as I see it as her growing in confidence and feeling she can tell me what she needs. I know it wouldn’t be what I would allow with Renae, but with Twinkle being a special girl, it feels right to roll with it for now. What the homeopath said however, was that this shows a bossy side to her personality, a thing that I would never have thought about, I know it sounds so obvious now, but seeing how fearful she appears so often, it’s hard to reconcile this with a bossy personality just waiting to surface.
Anyway, we took the remedy and I had to give him an update the other day. We haven’t noticed major changes, in fact at times it feels a bit as if she’s got worse, but he did warn this may happen and would be temporary. He is going to send a slightly different remedy to see how we get on with that next week. To compliment this approach, I reviewed some of the information that I used to know quite a lot about, Flower Remedies, but which I haven’t used for some time now. During my reading, I came across the Australian Bush Remedy, Flannel flower. Similar to homeopathy, the flower essences are vibrational infusions rather than herbal remedies, and this one would be used in cases that sound a lot like Twinkle Berry:
Positive: Gentleness; enjoyment of all physical expression and touch; trust to express and reveal self; sensuality; healthy boundaries
So, I’m giving it a go, I can’t see that it will do anything but help her, this, coupled with the time, patience and space that she needs, I am hoping she will one day be able to let herself feel as happy as Susie-Belle does these days.
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| Photo: Mike Jackson |
