{"id":29812,"date":"2019-08-06T20:31:37","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T01:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29812"},"modified":"2019-08-06T20:31:37","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T01:31:37","slug":"briefly-remember-that-wounded-creatures-require-long-term-patience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29812","title":{"rendered":"Briefly: Remember that wounded creatures require long-term patience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Molly woke up suddenly Tuesday morning and realized that I was close to her. She was instantly in what I call \u201cferal mode.\u201d She was afraid she might be in danger, despite the fact she\u2019s been safe and well-fed in my home for 11 years. I caught this photo of her worried expression and posted it on social media. One of my friends who has a deep personal interest in the effects of abuse on humans had a reaction similar to what I\u2019ve thought: \u201cI wonder if that response is similar to the heightened state of alert that people with [a history of abuse] experience,\u201d he wrote. I see a strong similarity between feral animals and abused people. Both can heal and change, but it takes time \u2014 and it requires us to be patient. After Molly\u2019s last daughter died a couple of weeks ago, she spent nearly a week letting me touch her, which was unprecedented. She\u2019s pulled away again, but the progress made my heart happy. It takes a long time to earn trust. If a feral animal or human with a history of abuse ever really trusts you, you\u2019re being given a great honor. (I wrote something longer about this<\/a> three years ago.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Molly woke up suddenly Tuesday morning and realized that I was close to her. She was instantly in what I call \u201cferal mode.\u201d She was afraid she might be in danger, despite the fact she\u2019s been safe and well-fed in my home for 11 years. I caught this photo of her worried expression and posted Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[556],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-briefly","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-7KQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29814,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29812\/revisions\/29814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}