Making progress

If you give a dog space and don't force your agenda on them things can progress quicker than one may expect.  Torii was pacing a lot the first couple of days, not wanting any interaction with us and touching her was not ok with her. We figured earning her trust would take a while and lucky for us, she's decided we aren't to bad to interact with. 

 

While I was on the computer she came over and with her coming over she was reinforced for that decision.  Torii is a food motivated little gal so we are working with that by "paying her" for her work. Her work consists of her choosing to coming near us.  There's no grabbing at her, forcing touch on her or forcing her to be near us.  Every move she makes towards us is her decision.

 

 

 

Torii not only checking me out but, making the decision to sit near me and stay with me for a bit of time.

 

We went through this same work with Royal so, he knows the drill and he's all about getting paid with food.

 And check out Tori a couple hours later! She may be 12 years young but this girl is all terrier.  She figured out how to get up to the perch spot and watch my husband as he was eating breakfast.  This picture is lovely -  you can see in her face and body that she's starting to relax.

 

 

One of way to gauge Torii's comfort level is to watch her ears and eyes.  If her ears are folded like in the above pictures she's feeling pretty good. Her eyes also appear less buggy when she's relaxed. If you see her ears sitting off to the side or raised that's her sign of discomfort.  Her shelter picture is a good visual example of a stressed Torii.

 

Torri's shelter picture