This drop dead gorgeous, too stunning for words, too loving to be a golden retriever- GSD was on the verge of abandonment after being labelled aggressive and too rambunctious for control by certain gurus of dog training after he spent a month in their ‘facility’ doing and being trained for heaven only knows what.

This is when I started working with Danny and his devoted dad Rajiv, who ran into me at the vet’s. The parents want the dog gone because they are frail and he is huge and jumpy and ‘untrainable’.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of aggression of any sort. The second thing I noticed was a debilitating fear of new people. And yet, this child had the composure of not converting that fear into something ugly. This is the beauty of dogs, and their resilience for anything that life throws at them.

Three sessions in, he is no longer reactive to passerbys- humans, dogs, cats, cars, bikes and mobikes. A dog that scared the bejeezus out of visitors – because of fear barking (to the point that the family’s not had a visitor in a year) let me in, let me hold him, let me check his eyes and ears and paws and came and sat on the couch with me comfortably. And I have done every single session with this towering, jumping, hugging giant- in a saree!

Thank you @shirin_merchant. Your teachings have most likely saved this dog from worst case- abandonment and best case- neglect.

The saree today is a mustard byloom with jewellery from dastakaar and fabindia.

Number 7 of the #100sareepact in 2016