June 25, 2009

New Jersey - Our Animal Teachers

One of the many things I love about TTouch is learning directly from the animals. You must really start listening to them to form the connection.
Let me introduce you to some of our Animal Teachers from New Jersey.
Meet Rex!

The first day of class I walk in and see Rex! What a beautiful boy. I wanted nothing more than to touch him! Rex was distrustful of people and with good reason.

Rex had cropped ears held tightly on top of his head. His human felt it was the result of a bad crop job. The details of his life eluded her but what she did know is that Rex was a former stud dog kept in a crate in a basement. The class watched as Linda taught Rex to trust and relax. As she did so his ears began to release.

As you can see, I had my opportunity to spend time with Rex. Notice the beautiful heart on his chest?


Meet Remi & Reba!


Remi was the first dog I walked successfully on a lead. I had expected that he would have been more difficult than my Pierre just based on his size. Remi and I were in step from word go. He and I walked around the building, starting and stopping, and everything flowing nicely. His "mom" complimented me and I said he was easy. She said he normally isn't like that with folks.

Since I did well with Remi she asked if I'd like to work with his more challenging sister, Reba. Well OF COURSE I would :-)


Reba and I had a HUGE breakthrough. She has never interacted with anyone but her "mom". She has been brought to training sessions before but no one has had success with her.

Everything I did with Reba clicked! Absolutely everything. For the first time ever I was smack on with my leash work and even with a dog who was more of a challenge! We had many issues to work out because she completely came "out of her body" with anxiety when we went outside. With a body wrap, touches and changing my hardware with her we had amazing results. What an amazing girl.


I'll never forget just who got me through my mental block on leash work!


Meet Naomi!


This is Naomi. She had extreme separation anxiety and was reactive (not aggressive) in most situations.

We were to take our dogs out to the confidence course for ground work and I was assigned to Naomi and her "mom". Things weren't going well and I could not get her to stop pulling and barking. My mentor, Cynde, came to my rescue and reminded me that Naomi is not on my agenda and I need to meet her where she is. We moved to a place where she was comfortable and not reacting to the other dogs. Just a few minutes of her being away and standing still allowed her to get back in balance and "get into her body". Once that happened we were able to do some leash work in about a 10' area.

Cynde decided we should work on the separation issues and so I took Naomi a few feet from her mom and as soon as she turned her head to look at Gerlinda I was to take her back and let her check in with Gerlinda remaining very neutral to Naomi coming back.

A couple times of stretching it out a bit more Naomi was totally fine moving half way around the building with me. She had not been able to do this before.

Then when we went into our discussion circle she plopped herself down between me and her mom with her weight resting against me and let me do body work on her.

It was such an honor to help her learn that leaving Gerlinda's side was a safe thing to do.



Meet Bella!


What a surprise to see Bella and her "mom" Rebecca come to the session that was opened to the public. Rebecca had to take a subway, train and a cab to get there. It was fantastic meeting Rebecca after all this time of knowing her and Bella online.

Here Bella is graciously allowing me to do chimp touches on her pretty little head.


Meet Esme!


Esme came to class with her Foster Mom, Nichole. What an adorable little girl she was. It wasn't long before she had several classmates wrapped around her pretty little paw.

Little did I know then how many pit bulls would be in my life in a very short time.

Thank you Esme for being the first little Pitty girl to capture my heart.

No comments:

Post a Comment