Iggy has a major breakthrough!

Tonight's session with Iggy was better than I could have ever imagined. One thing we are taught in TTouch is not to hold expectations. Expectations can limit your results.

When I arrived Nicole told me that Anastasia from Relaxing Rex, canine massage, wanted to come by and meet me. I thought the idea was great. My goal for Iggy is for him to become comfortable with a wide range of situations and not just be comfortable with his foster parents....and me. The more things we can introduce him to the better.

While the three of us were in the back yard Iggy would run over and take a treat from me and run away again. This is typical Iggy behavior. The magical thing about Iggy is that when his doggie friends are present he becomes a lot braver. I suggested we bring out Doby and Benny.



As soon as his buddies were with us then Iggy wanted to be in the center of the action too.








Iggy gets very curious what the other dogs are getting that he is not and I use that to my advantage.

We want Iggy to eventually wear a Thundershirt so I had Doby wear one and let Iggy see it was okay.

Another thing we want to do is be able to clicker train Iggy. Strange noises scare him so we have to proceed slowly. A thought came to me to do some clicker with Benny and see what Iggy did. At first he flinched. The next time he watched but didn't finch so bad. It wasn't long before I had taught Iggy the very useful "Touch" request.

Look at Iggy doing a line drive across the yard to touch my hand!







I think he is actually smiling!










What a quick learner Iggy is. :-)







Of course I generalized Touch in various places in the yard. Including under HIS tree.

After Anastasia left and it was just Nicole, Iggy and I he seemed to really relax...for Iggy. He was stressed with a third person there but still he was able to deal with the clicker and learn to Touch.

It was at this point Iggy let his hair down, so to speak, and really enjoyed some good TTouch.







He laid on his side and allowed tummy rubs and let me work on his feet.
















Time for some mouth work.








If you calm the tail of an excited dog it calms the dog. Here I'm using the opposite thought. I have a timid dog and if I try to duplicate a happy tail will I get a happy dog?

I think we did get a happy dog. What do you think?



It was at this point some very wise words came to mind.
End the session when you think things are going really well.
It was very difficult for me to leave at this point but I'll be back next Tuesday.