Pogo was found roaming in Ireland and was a lovely little bag of wild energy when she came home with us from Border Collie Trust in Staffordshire

https://www.bordercollietrustgb.org.uk/about-border-collie-trust

At Border Collie Trust staff and management were very patient and understanding, allowing us to visit numerous times so Pogo could begin to get to know us and Hagrid over several weeks before coming home with us. There was a delay because Pogo came into season and Hagrid was an un-neutered male. If Pogo had come home with us at that point all kinds of problems would have occurred for both dogs, so waiting until her season was over was the best decision.

These visiting sessions gave Pogo a chance to become familiar with me and the vehicle she’d be traveling in on the journey to our house. It was time to just sit, get to know one another and begin to build a positive relationship. She made the choices. At first there was no way she was ever getting into a vehicle but slowly she warmed to getting in beside me and we just sat together.
Think about it – she’d been brought over from Ireland in a vehicle, taken from the life she knew, whatever that was like and probably in a van, with other dogs. She was really fearful of traveling and where she would end up and that fear is still with her, although somewhat reduced. It’s been a long journey to reach a more confident Pogo while traveling in a vehicle – it’s taken years and I’ve found she’s more relaxed in certain vehicles but never totally at ease. It’s just not her bag.

So Imagine, trying to settle Pogo into our home after a forty five minute drive. She was so overwhelmed by the time we reached our home and then we needed to give her a short potter with Hagrid at a distance so they both understood they were going into our house together (with space in between). Hagrid went into his usual comfortable areas of the house and Pogo was introduced to the kitchen. We found she couldn’t cope inside the house so we then sectioned off a small quiet area in the adjoining garage (carpeted floor), put a dog gate in the doorway to the kitchen so Pogo could adapt to life inside the house by watching what went on from the garage. Within weeks she was able to be in the kitchen for a couple of minutes before overwhelm and this is how she begun to get used to life inside our house. There’s more of how we acquaint dogs to one another so they go at their pace in ‘the tale of a BIG dog’ available from laidbackdogs.com