One morning, our vet arrived. She came to make a thorough examination of Nanette because in nearly three weeks there had been no bowel movements (not surprising in the circumstances!).
Our vet is a small robust young woman and without preliminaries, she rolled up her sleeves while I cleared a space on the low table in the lounge. Then we got the harness on and heaved Nanette up on to the table. After a thorough check, she didn't feel there was much to worry about and gave me a prescription for the problem.
Then she decided to take her out. We got a terrified Nanette out of the door...down my 16 steps into the garden. To my consternation, she took Nanette through the gate and marched purposefully towards the electronic gates in spite of Nanette's powerful resistance, ' I want to see how she reacts near the road!!' she said!! Well!! her reaction was as you might expect, terror, resistance BUT now, she couldn't wait to get inside to the 'safety' of her corner! That was the big change.
Our vet then prepared to leave and said..' you should push her out in the garden every day for 2 hours and close the door.'!! Now, I have the greatest respect for our vet and her skills and it was clear to me that it had been necessary to insist on the trip outside...sometimes we have to be tough to be kind...but, I was extremely dubious about the wisdom of following this piece of advice!! However, at this point , I was still 'under the influence' of my own self doubt.
The following day, I followed this advice. I hauled Nanette outside on to the steps and closed the door! I have never seen such an expression of sheer betrayal on anyone's face. She was horrified and there was no sense in it, as she had just begun to develop some trust in me and I was suddenly shutting her out!! I opened the door at once and she shot back in like a bullet out of a gun!! This was the moment I sat down and asked myself some serious questions.
From that moment on...I asked no one for any counsel or advice! Instead, I relied on listening to my own intuition thus investing in my own authority, instead of abdicating in favour of external authority. This was the moment that our relationship became a healing relationship. When I arrived home from shopping later that day.....I was delighted to see a large pile of dog pooh by the front door!! At last, Nanette was letting go!!! I saw this as a 'sign' of the 'rightness' of my decision..