Claire Pearson - Tellington TTouch Practitioner P1

SE London

Introduction

- Does your dog snap at other dogs or pull like a train on the lead? 

- Is firework season a real nightmare for him? 

- Does he seem really uncooperative when you try to groom him?

- Do you have a cat who is excessively timid or lashes out when picked up?

- Does your rabbit bite?

If so, TTouch could help!

Just as we, as humans, develop less than perfect posture and have areas where we carry tension (eg tight shoulders), so too do our pets. Your dog may have a really tight tail or might carry his head quite high indicating tension in the neck. He might carry tension in his muzzle and bark excessively.  These patterns of tension and blocked awareness of certain areas of the body can create stress elsewhere in the body, and can affect the animal's posture, general wellbeing and behaviour.

TTouch helps the animal to release tension and to improve its balance, co-ordination and posture, all of which influence behaviour: as posture improves, so does behaviour, and many owners find that unwanted behaviours diminish with the use of TTouch. The animal becomes calmer and more focussed, and learns to respond, rather than react, to situations. See here for testimonials.

Some of the exercises we do in TTouch can seem a little different to typical animal training techniques, as they do not necessarily directly address specific training or behavioural issues, but by teaching the animal to have better balance and coordination, more self-awareness, and to be able to self-calm, we are giving it transferrable skills which it can then take into its wider life.

What can TTouch help with?

TTouch can help with issues such as inappropriate aggression, fear of thunder/fireworks, fear of the vet or being groomed, nervousness of new situations, lack of focus, over-grooming, pulling on the lead, training issues and general wellbeing. It is a great way of strengthening the owner-animal bond as the animal really learns to trust their owner on a deep level.

Who is it for?

Tellington TTouch is being used by pet owners and professionals alike - it is used in rescue centres (incl Battersea Dogs and Cats Home) to help rehabilitate animals prior to rehoming. It is used in conjunction with other supportive treatments (eg hydrotherapy) to help animals recovering from spinal or neurological injuries. The basic TTouches are easy to learn under the guidance of a practitioner and can be used on all your animals on an ongoing basis. Because TTouch is so gentle it can be used on puppies and kittens as well as ageing pets.

What does TTouch involve?

There are two key strands to TTouch:

1. Bodywork - the TTouches

                Bella enjoying the Turtle TTouch - many of the TTouches are named after the animals they were first used on.

Using a very light pressure, the skin is moved in tiny circles, lifts and slides all over the animal's body. To get an idea of the kind of pressure used, try cupping your cheek in your hand, and use one finger to very gently move the skin over your cheekbone so that you cannot feel the bone - this is the kind of pressure used in TTouch.

TTouch is not massage. By moving the skin in this gentle, non-habitual way, we are sending sensory information to the brain - it's a little like crossing your legs the "wrong" way. This gives the animal a different experience to the norm and when working on an animal you can often see them really internally focussing and taking in this different information. Typical responses are a softening of the eyes, a lower respiratory (breathing) rate, and it's not uncommon for animals to become so relaxed that they start to fall asleep!  

2. Groundwork - life in balance

Zorro is an anxious dog with a tendency to pull on the lead and lean out to one side, relying on whoever is holding the lead for his balance. This causes tension in his back and with this, comes reactivity to oncoming dogs and people. Here, we are teaching him to walk in balance - no pulling and no leaning. With this new skill and ongoing bodywork, the tension in his back is relieved and he is able to respond more appropriately to oncomers.

Groundwork teaches the animal to move in balance, improve their awareness of their body (our four-legged friends can sometimes have less awareness of what their back ends are doing than you'd think), and to gain confidence through negotiating different, low-level obstacles, turns and surfaces. It's a bit like a very low-level agility course done at a snail's pace. At this pace we can really see how a dog is responding to situations. Some dogs tend to have one speed - 5th gear - but when we slow them down we can see that actually they find some simple obstacles really difficult to negotiate and that they are rushing at things in an attempt to "get it over with". Using different leading techniques we help them to re-gain their balance and co-ordination which in turn improves their confidence. By slowing everything down we are asking the animal to really focus on what it is doing and giving it plenty of time to organise its body.

TTouch is all about cooperating with, and listening to, your pet. There is no tugging on the leash, there is no enforced restraint, and there is no set routine that we go through. Each and every animal is treated as an individual and the work we do with them is adjusted accordingly.

To book a session, click here.

Find out more - visit the UK TTouch website here.