00:00We've never had a rescue this scared before. This is Luna, she's six years old and today
00:05she's going to be meeting our entire pack. We spent the last three weeks trying to help Luna
00:13come out her shell. She's been on an incredible journey and it all started when we first picked
00:18her up. So this is the first time we met Luna. We could tell from the jump she was really
00:24unsure
00:25of everything and just really really scared. She had to get carried to the car because she
00:34was too frightened to walk. And when we arrived back at ours you could see just how unsure she
00:41is of everything. Honestly I was a bit worried about picking her up out of the car, I wasn't
00:49sure if she would bite me or not. You could see she tried to run off straight away, she's a
00:56huge flight
00:57risk. I tried to take her towards the house but she wasn't having any of it. So I just took
01:09my time
01:09with her, got down to a level and gave no eye contact. But we did eventually manage to get her
01:14into the house. Frozen in fear, we took everything at her own pace.
01:25I'll explain later why Ella says that. This is Luna's first time in a house for years.
01:33She's like this is my crib. Thank you. Yeah that's for you Luna.
01:38We're really proud of her, she didn't completely shut down and is brave enough to explore.
01:44We sat down so we were at her level and just let her do her thing. She's already really
01:48overwhelmed so we didn't want to add to that. She even stopped off to have a drink and honestly
01:59drank like the entire bowl, bless her she was so thirsty. We could see her sniffing for some food
02:05so we offered her treats. She then even showed some interest in us for the first time.
02:09Good girl. Ooh yummy. She's like no don't pet me thank you. But I will take a treat.
02:22We then took her outside to sniff the garden. Like I mentioned earlier she's a huge flight risk and
02:27even though we have six foot high fences it was pitch black outside and we didn't want to risk losing
02:31her.
02:32She had a pee, we went back inside, she had a sniff of the puppy's pen and then...
02:41So it looks like we've got a little counter surfer. Ella said ne because Luna is from North Macedonia
02:47and we think that's how you say no in Macedonian. If we're wrong please let us know in the comments.
02:54After spending some time letting her decompress and trying to give her some broccoli, it's time for
02:59Luna to meet her first dog, our gentle boy, Coby.
03:16So the rescue that we got Luna from thinks she's around six years old. She's by far the oldest dog
03:21we have ever rescued. Luna has had a really rough life. The first shelter she stayed at took advantage
03:27of donations. They pocketed it for themselves and left the dogs starving. You could see here how
03:32bad Luna's teeth are. Apparently she was trying to eat rocks to survive.
03:49You could see she wasn't entirely comfortable around Coby and we didn't want her to feel trapped,
03:54so we just gently moved Coby away and then sat down to give her some space.
04:00So that went okay, no fights which is the most important thing.
04:04Well now it's time for Luna to meet our overly excited mini horse, Moki.
04:32Luna was being very wary of Moki and although it doesn't seem like she's not that interested in
04:37Luna, we think she was just really stressed.
04:49We kept taking Moki away just so Luna didn't feel too overwhelmed.
04:55You know you've got to remember as well Moki will run away.
05:11You can see I had an air horn at the ready just in case anything happened.
05:17Moki out, Moki out, out! Moki then of course completely misreads the room but we did manage
05:25to get her to be nice and calm. So I wouldn't exactly say all the dogs are best friends but
05:29that's fine. As long as there's no fights, it's a good start. We then brought Coby into the room
05:33so Luna could meet them both at the same time.
05:50Coby's being very gentle and polite with her, it's almost like he knows what she's been through.
05:55Luna still has two more dogs to meet, our tiny puppies Bonnie and Olive.
06:12Luna was really unbothered by the pups after Moki decided that Luna stinks.
06:18What, are you having a sniff of Moki's? Moki's mouth!
06:23Moki thought you stink?
06:25We then started doing some positive training with her lead.
06:29We wanted to take her outside again but didn't want her to be scared.
06:37Good girl, there you go. Good girl.
06:43And then we started doing normal everyday things around the house.
06:46As much as I wanted to cuddle Luna and tell her everything's going to be okay,
06:50the best thing to do was to let her decompress from everything she's just been through.
06:54We then introduced her to her bed. I put some treats inside and to my surprise,
06:59she went straight in and laid down. We wanted to give her lots of positive association here,
07:03so I also gave her more treats when she was inside.
07:06Here you go.
07:08After having the sleep of her life, Luna then showed me a tiny glimpse into her personality.
07:13Oh, what are you doing? Oh, what a lady's up.
07:22How you doing? Oh, please don't buy the sofa.
07:29Oh, okay. Oh, you've got an itchy face.
07:36After showing a bit more interest in the pups and making herself feel at home,
07:40and then slept in the spare room with her for the night.
07:44If you could click that subscribe button,
07:46it will allow us to continue helping out dogs just like Luna.
07:50You can see the way she flinches when we go to pet her.
07:53She's definitely been hit in the past and it makes me really sad to see her react this way.
08:00A few days have passed and honestly, not a whole lot happened.
08:03Luna would stay at the top of the stairs, the puppies would be puppies,
08:06and then we noticed she would stay outside a lot, just sitting there.
08:10She came from a shelter where they have 80 dogs and sadly,
08:14Luna had been there for over three years. Nobody wanted her.
08:17That's why we decided to take her. She just needed a chance.
08:21It made me really sad when I saw Luna curled up in a ball trying to sleep outside.
08:25It's just what she was used to, but I took her inside because she doesn't need to do that anymore.
08:30For the first time in years, she now has a warm home she can sleep in.
08:38After Luna felt a bit more comfortable with us, it's time to address the problems she has.
08:49The first being really bad separation anxiety.
08:52This is quite common with rescues. You can see how badly she would howl when we left the house.
09:05When we came home, she would be really happy we were back, but we made sure to ignore her.
09:10And so the training started to help her with her separation anxiety.
09:14The first step was just to get her used to the front door.
09:17We would leave for 20 seconds and then come straight back in.
09:20The goal here was for Luna to stop associating the front door with us being gone.
09:24We repeated this over and over again until she lost interest in us leaving.
09:35You could see this was already working. We paid her no attention when we came back in,
09:40so that it didn't feel like a big deal that she was alone for a little bit.
09:43Most importantly, there was no howling or freaking out from her, which was a perfect start.
09:48To progress this, we gradually increased the time we left her alone.
09:51We left Luna alone here for three minutes, but would she cry or howl?
10:04Nothing, no cries or anything, which was amazing. She was doing really well.
10:09So now it's time for Luna to enter the final stage of her training.
10:11We're gonna leave her with some treats and leave her for 10 whole minutes.
10:15Yes, we even timed this and we would really be gone.
10:19But question is, would this be too much for Luna?
10:24Me and Ella went to the shops. It was actually quite nice to finally be out of the house together
10:28for once.
10:29Luna was busy at home cleaning up the fish we left her, but what's gonna happen once that's finished?
10:46She did it. Some little cries here and there, but what a difference. We're so proud of her.
10:52So onto Luna's next problem. She's kind of scared of the lead.
10:55We have gotten to a point where we can now place the lead on her, but now it's all about
10:59getting her used to it.
11:00The motivation behind this is we're gonna take Luna on her first walk in years.
11:05Yeah, I'm not exaggerating. It's been years since this poor dog has been on a walk.
11:10So we're just trying to do some positive association with the lead, some gentle tugs to see if she will
11:15walk with us.
11:16By the way, can I just say we're not trainers and honestly far from professionals, but we just try and
11:21do our best to help.
11:22I wonder if she's been like dragged on the lead or something before, like maybe when they rescued her,
11:27because she really doesn't like the feeling of being tugged on the lead.
11:31Good girl. Well done.
11:32Good girl. Well done.
11:34Yeah.
11:35It's a little tail work.
11:36Yeah.
11:37Yeah.
11:39Here you go.
11:42Yes, for you.
11:43We managed to get her to a point where there were baby steps, but we didn't want to push her
11:47too much at all.
11:48She's already been through so much and is making amazing progress.
11:51She's looking so fed up. She'll just take this lead off and let me roam around.
11:57Okay, so the time has come. Luna's first walk. She's been at Arwa's for about two weeks now.
12:02Honestly, we weren't sure she would ever get to a point where we could take her outside.
12:06So let's see how she does.
12:09Good girl. Come on.
12:12Yeah. Well done.
12:15She's looking for escape routes.
12:20We're going to go for a walk-off.
12:22Luna, is that a treat?
12:24Is that enough?
12:25It's all right.
12:26Well, I don't think being outside doesn't scare her. It's the lead.
12:31True, yeah.
12:31Try and walk across the road.
12:44I stood there to just let her take everything in. I honestly was in shock. She felt so comfortable.
12:50She was even being so good on the lead. We took the small win and took her back inside.
12:54But the next day, we were going to really test her.
13:01We're going to be taking Luna out with Kobe and Moki. Hopefully,
13:08they will give her all the confidence she needs for her first ever proper walk in years.
13:14No.
13:34Let's hope you're so happy, huh?
13:37I thought we were so far away from this.
13:40Honestly, I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time.
13:43Luna has since been on so many walks, growing in confidence more and more each time.
13:48It just goes to show that she needed some patience and some love, and most importantly, a chance.
13:54If you enjoyed this video, why not watch the first time Kobe met the puppies?
13:58How he reacted honestly shocked me. See you there.
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