Sophie arrived from Romania in the early hours of a December morning in 2022. Her new family – author, podcaster and broadcaster, Rory Cellan-Jones and his wife, economics professor, Diane Coyle weren’t novices. They knew their new rescue would take time to adjust. But they weren’t prepared for just how fearful Sophie would be. She took up residence behind their sofa, only coming out in the dead of night, her anxious nocturnal forays for food captured on a web cam.

 

Sophie hadn’t been abused, but she had been separated from her mother very early and abandoned. It’s likely that too little socialisation in her formative months and limited exposure to new and different experiences - people, places, sounds, smells – meant she wasn’t ‘padded,’ able to cope with the unfamiliar. Everything was new and the new was very, very scary indeed. My job was to guide Rory and Diane through a gradual process of overcoming her fear, building her resilience and gently growing her willingness to explore her new world.

 

At every stage, we had to take it gently, allowing Sophie to make choices about what she did to maintain her sense of safety. We used an approach similar to the one psychologists take to help people with phobias: desensitisation (gradual exposure what worried her at an intensity she could tolerate) and counter conditioning (pairing the new and scary with something positive). The goal was for Sophie to regard her people as a source of safety because this would help her in the next stages of discovering her new and unfamiliar world.

 

Over the weeks, she made some headway, gradually coming closer to take cheese from their hands. She ventured into the garden, chasing the pigeons. But still any sudden movement or noise would send her running back for the safety of her sofa nest. Progress took infinite patience.

 

I spent an intensive two weeks with Sophie while Rory and Diane went on holiday for a break and I gently introduced her to the joys of play with her toys. She abandoned the sofa den and discovered to comforts of the dog beds that had been available to her from day one. When her family returned, she engaged more, sitting on the floor by Rory when he watched the football and sharing Diane’s enthusiasm for watching Strictly Come Dancing. Her people had become her safe base and she began exploring other rooms in the house that had held only terror for her. Finally, after intense efforts to get her to accept her harness, a year after her arrival, there came that all important first walk on a frosty morning in the park, one that Rory had looked forward to since her arrival.

 

Sophie now is relaxed and mischievous with her immediate family, waking them up in the morning for a walk. She’s making canine chums. And although she remains anxious about strangers, barking up a storm if they come into the house, she’s showing progress and Rory and Diane are helping her expand her social circle. Through endless patience, they have become her secure base and is part of the family at last.