We spent Thanksgiving day sitting quietly in Tasha’s kennel working on getting her to learn to trust us. We wanted to take advantage of the clinic being closed and “quieter”, which is a bit of an oxymoron if you have ever been in a concrete kennel. It was non stop barking, but without the hustle and bustle of the staff coming in and out of the back area. That was a big plus. Any movement in the back kennel area was still unnerving to Tasha.
We knew that we had been given a big pass in being able to keep Tasha in the clinic through the holiday, but we also knew that we were in a race against time to get her out of the clinic before the next big boarding holiday, Christmas.
We had a long way to go to get her to allow us to handle her and allow us to leash her in a timely manner. We had an appointment with Nelson the next day and we were anxious to be able to leash her quickly to allow him to work with her productively against our demanding schedule.

Tasha taking a Thanksgiving bologna treat
In the beginning it was our experience and expectation to sit in the kennel with her for hours just to touch her a few times. That graduated to being able to move without spooking her, then on to eventually be able to show her the leash, and then ultimately being able to leash her. Now the pressure was on to be able to leash her within a 5 minute period so she could be approached and eventually walked by the kennel staff.
So it was that we sat in a very smelly (they couldn’t clean her kennel well if they couldn’t take her out of it), loud, cold kennel for hours on Thanksgiving, thankful for the pass we had been given to keep her there over the holiday and thankful for her growing trust and adaptive nature.