Six weeks under a bench

Tumaini came in from Ngaramtoni on 24 July with a wound on her shoulder that took nine minutes to clean and four weeks to stop mattering. The wound was never the problem.

For the first three weeks she lived under the bench in kennel four and came out only at night, when she thought the yard was empty. She ate. She did not growl, did not snap, did not bark. She simply removed herself from the situation as completely as a dog of eighteen kilograms can, and waited for us to go away.

What we did about it, which was nothing

There is a strong instinct, especially in visiting volunteers, to fix a dog like this. To sit in the run and offer food from the hand. To reach under and touch her so she learns that touch is survivable. It is well meant and it is the wrong thing, and we spend a good part of every placement induction saying so.

Our rule in the kennels is that a frightened dog sets the distance. Staff work around her, talk normally, put food down and leave. Nobody reaches under a bench. Nobody blocks an exit. The dog is given the one thing she has not had in her life so far, which is the reliable experience of a person coming close and then nothing happening.

A dog that is forced out from under a bench has learned that hiding does not work. A dog that comes out on her own has learned something far more useful. Dr. Sara Kileo, surgery lead

On day twenty-three she came out while Emmanuel was doing the afternoon feed and stood four metres away watching him. He carried on counting bowls. On day twenty-five she leaned on his leg.

Why the trial is two weeks and not two days

She is now the dog who puts her head on the knee of anyone who sits down in the yard, which is the version of her that people meet when they visit, and it is a slightly misleading one. A dog who has settled in a kennel has settled in a place with one routine, four staff and no children. A house has visitors, motorbikes, a gate that bangs, and someone who wants to hug her.

That is what the two-week home trial is for. It is not a test the adopter passes or fails. It is two weeks in which the dog gets to say whether this particular house is survivable, with us on the end of a phone and a vehicle ready to collect her if the answer is no. Nobody has failed anything if she comes back. Three dogs came back last year and two of them went out again to different houses within a month.

Tumaini, record TDR-4388, is listed for adoption. She is best suited to a quiet household with no small children and a person who is home during the day. She will not be an easy first week. She will be an extraordinary second year.