The Witchy Bitches on Nostr: When Baloo, the enormous chocolate lab came to live with us after being abandoned and ...

When Baloo, the enormous chocolate lab came to live with us after being abandoned and ending up in a shelter in August of 2024 I noticed right away she had come from a home where getting on the furniture was against the rules. It took her a few days to believe that no really it's ok for dogs to be on the furniture here... Then a few more days to get the courage to get on said furniture. She used to get down if she knew I realized she was on the furniture.... Anyway... One of the "tasks" my dogs do is lay against me in bed at night. I am deafblind with unremitting vertigo. So imagine the worst ear infection you've ever had and thats how i move through the world every day. Or ... more accurately... how the world moves through me. This makes laying flat when my feet aren't in contact with the ground kind of scary because if I wake up and am not actually fully awake it can be very terrifying because I feel like I'm free falling, or floating on the ceiling and in my half awake state try and get away/find solid ground, but just end up rolling out of bed and compounding my problems. So i have taught my dogs to sleep against my body, one of them between me and the edge of the bed. I have taught my nervous system to search out the physical feeling of that pressure of the dog's body and if I can feel the dog sleeping against me then we aren't hanging from the ceiling. It gives me feedback which allows me to rationalize the nonsense feedback I'm getting from my completely destroyed vestibular system. So what does this have to do with Baloo. The goldens will take turns and will sleep in shifts so I'm always with someone but if one gets hot and needs to lay somewhere else, the other will take over. This isn't something I cue this is something they work out between them. But now they're including Baloo. She's on the roster now. Phoenix has started leaving me alone with her. For the last 6 months she's been letting Baloo do some of it but has always stayed nearby and now I'm noticing that she stays with me until I fall asleep, but once I fall asleep if she wants she will go somewhere else on the bed or on the floor if she's hot to sleep and will trust Baloo. For the record Baloo is really good at deep pressure therapy and perimeter work. Last night everyone had fallen asleep before i was ready to lie down and once I got settled, Baloo crawled into the right place without even really waking up. She knew I was finally ready for sleep and noticed enough to make sure she was where she should be. 🐻🤎