Open to the Unplanned

After much thought, and some info digging, I decided to go a different direction with Sydney this week and we skipped the confidence course. My plan was to help her find her back end. I don't think she knows her body extends beyond her shoulders! My feeling is that part of her wanting to lay down is that she may have pain in the back end and in her legs.



There have been attempts to clicker train Sydney before but she had trouble focusing on the process and lost interest.

We did the body wrap and even put scrunchies on her feet.




So we did lots of touches and leg work.



One of the Practitioners I spoke with recommended I use some clicker training in conjunction with the TTouch and click 'n treat for movement forward. I liked that idea and decided I wanted to take it a little further and also teach "Touch" so that when Sydney is focused on something she may want to move toward that she can be redirected with the request to "Touch".

Sydney is a very quick study!

We even used the Balance Leash Plus in the living room to see how that worked with her - and she responded quite a bit better.


Today Sydney was completely focused on me!


I found out today that there ARE side effects to TTouch! Cairo, the Bengal cat, had been watching me work with Sydney and was quite interested in the whole process.


Here is some background on the dynamics surrounding the animal members of this family. Cairo is 7 1/2 years old and was given to Terri being a handful more than her current home was capable of dealing with. He was very outgoing and quite the people person. Then along came Sydney last December. When Sydney joined the family Cairo became a recluse and when he did come out he would be chased by Sydney. Sydney meant no harm but that is not how Cairo explained things.

So today we had Cairo benefiting from the touches Sydney received and the general peace and calm in the room. Sydney was not interested in the least that Cairo had joined us.

I even think they are starting to gang up on me!

It wasn't long before Cairo learned that a "click" resulted in a duck heart for Sydney. Having never worked with Cats before I thought it would be fun to see if Cairo could learn to Touch.

He picked it up so very fast!

We weren't through yet. Terri had one more surprise! A Guinea Pig named Princes Pigless that tends to "nip"! Well I've not worked with Guinea Pigs either....and certainly not one who nips. But heck, we were on a roll so in came Princess!

What to do with a Guinea Pig? Well I did tiny light touches of all kinds, hair slides and ear work. Even did the bridge of her nose and some mouth work. Never once did she try to nip me. I did get some soft sweet kisses though.

It soon became a family affair - something that has never happened before. Terri commented on several firsts today. What a wonderful family to work with


And the final seal of approval came with Peace being shared by all.