By Dido Panagiotopoulos

"I was a feral dog living in the veld and then under a grandstand at a school. This is the story of my rehabilitation, as told by Dido, my forever mom:"

It was Monday beginning of a new week and day four (or rather three and a half) with our foster fur baby Dini.... Despite being beyond exhausted (after the grooming ordeal the day before) I took the pack down to Ruimsig for an hour of laps. Nothing like exercise to clear the head and create calm and balance! At this stage Dini remained on leash at all times. Already he would stand happily waiting for me to put on his half check collar and leash. He was not allowed into the garage or car without it, so it had already come to symbolize OUTINGS... and one thing about Dini, he loves to EXPLORE... he is an adventurer, curious by nature. I had never had a foster before who had literally explored every leaf and blade of grass in the garden...no buried bone had remained uncovered! Read more...

I had slowly become aware that my aim to rehabilitate and rehome Dini in two short weeks was an impossible task. He had far too many issues (mainly fear and anxiety based and mainly as a result of a lack of socialization and exposure to... well, to pretty much everything). We can only guess at his history and past and as much as I would give to know what his story was, I cannot change that. We live in the here-and-now and I can only change his present, and hope that his present good, nurturing, consistent experiences would help him be able to find a fantastic home where he could fulfill his destiny to become a great dog with a stress-free life. Unfortunately most of his fears were unrealistic and he would over-react to everything. A fluttering plastic bag on a tree at the park would cause him to jump out of his skin. A dog bark would cause him to bristle with anticipation. Another dog would cause him to lunge and snap. Something falling or raised voices, would cause him to flee... it seemed endless... and worse, unpredictable!

On this walk I decided to start with some leash manners... his little 10.6kg could drag my lard arse around the field at speed... that had to stop! I was the leader and he had to become the follower... after all if I was his protector and provider, the least he could do in return was show a little respect and a few manners, right?! Difficult job because on the one hand I really wanted him to use some of that endless store of energy he has and then on the other hand I wanted him to be calm and walk nicely on lead. My others are fantastic, Cyclops is my velcro dog, he is always at my side, Jumpies and Gumby are a little fat and less fit so they are normally in my shadow... and all off-leash. I embarked on some very quick walking with Dini, not using commands but changing direction rapidly forcing him to concentrate on me and my legs... he responded quickly and without all the outside distractions he was focused and enjoying it. Another pitfall I discovered which was completely new to me, was Dini has zero food drive, so treating as a reward was really not working very well. Fortunately he was eager to please and seemed to crave praise even more than food. I believe we both found it an invigorating and bonding experience. We also managed to conquer his fear of the big concrete block with the place to connect a fire engine hose to it which was in the middle of the field. I remembered how he'd first approached me and Gumby (at our first meeting) and so we made consecutively tighter circles around the hydrant until we were at it... a few sniffs later, he pee'd on it and claimed ownership of it. He never even seemed to notice it again on subsequent walks - it was okay, meant to be there and non-threatening.

After the walk I went to a petstore nearby to get a Pheromone Calming Collar, a Preventic tick collar... and landed up buying a flat collar and engraved tag with his name and our contact numbers on it (he is an escape artist after all!) When I got home, hubby was there and asked what the ladies from ARRF had thought about Dini's new haircut. Then he said he didn't think Dini should keep sleeping on our bed because it would be really hard for him when he goes back to the kennels after two weeks. Needless to say I was very quiet. Then he said that we cannot possibly keep him and that he'd have to cancel our mid-October beach holiday if I was going to keep him and that NOBODY has FOUR dogs. To that I reminded him the Dini was really skinny and that Gumby was now on a very strict diet and that they would all fit into the back of my Suzuki SX2... and the reason that no one had four dogs was because they all have TWO KIDS and two dogs!!! Hubby, darling hubby, then replied that in THAT case, Dini had definitely begin sleeping in his own bed, starting from tonight!

First there was Gumby, the CLAW foster kid who became pack member and now it's Dini. Actually thinking back, it took about three days for us to change from foster home to forever home in Gumby's case too... as Tony, Cora's (from CLAW) husband always said: as soon as they get a (new) name, you know they are going to stay! Well here's my new bumper sticker with Gumby on the left and Dini on the right!