Nala sent us a Christmas message from the top go the hill :-

“Christmas is all about family and food, right, so let me tell you, I got both, a new family of an older and a young human female. I will reserve judgement on the humans, but the food is just great!!! 
The venison bones are my favourite, but the real meat and raw food is good too, sadly my human puts some funny tasting oil in there, but if it makes her happy, I will eat it.
My tummy has been amazing since I got here and my coat is changing colour, becoming richer and darker with all that fresh meat. 
Its been a long 8 weeks.. what a ride, believe me I have been freaked out of my mind at times! 
It could be Christmas every day, if it weren’t for the memories that still haunt me, especially when everything just gets too much. 
At times I have to fill the air with barking at the top of my voice and run around in circles so I don’t feel or hear the fear that grips me at times. 
Suddenly I am back there in time. My humans become a ghost from the past, someone terrifying holding onto a lead, that I need to get away from to save myself.
Fighting for my life, I  jump up at them at lightning speed from the side, I snap my jaws in front of their face, while staying out of reach of any kicking foot.
In these moments I see and hear nothing, there is only fear and survival and I defend myself with all I have.
I will not for the life of me let anyone get hold of my collar. I can barely breathe, my sight fades while I struggle to get away to some safe place far away, I don’t know where. 

This is the only way I can speak about my experiences, and they understood.
My big human is bit of a therapy  geek and her last dog trained her well… thank you Paddy, so she knows all weird and wonderful things and people, who are trying to get through to me by various means and help me heal bit by bit. Believe it or not, she even rang an animal communicator in Switzerland! 
I have had contact care, it was weird, but didn’t hurt, the guy said my neck and back were out and after a few rough days I feel more like myself. 

There are sooo many new things, I cannot believe it, my new doggie friend Ella rolls her eyes at me. Ella says, it is pretty good here, she must know, she has lived here for 11 years and was very scared of humans, when she accidentally arrived at my humans place. 
There is Meg the cat, she keept following me around and actually stalking me and I am getting used to her coming up to me and sleeping in the same room as her. My humans tell me Meg is trying to make friends.  

Then I step outside and there are all these other creatures, chickens, ducks, wekas, horses goats and alpacas.  I feel all eyes are on me and I cannot help barking and lungeing at them to keep them at bay. 

We go for daily walks and my human stops cars on our road and asks the people to say hello to me, so I learn not to bark at them. We are getting pretty good at this and they can now pass me slowly and I don’t feel the need to bark. 
We do quite a few car trips and I have to keep my eyes on the road i case they dropped me off somewhere. It was exhausting and my head was spinning, all those cars zooming past like a video game. I couldn’t take my eyes of then. 
Then my attentive humans started giving me bones on the back seat and peanut butter lick mats. So now i quite often go to sleep! 
I still am worried, the humans might not like me, they have caught a glimpse of the ugly past, do they think it’s my fault?  What is the point of dropping my guard, when they can change their mind any time, I have been there before. They are just so unreliable! 
My new humans are pretty good, best thing, they don’t go far without me. They tell me this is my home and sometimes I believe it.”