Pets
You Got the Right Touch
TTouch, an animal training method using small, circular strokes on an animal’s body, is a gaining popularity in the treatment of anxious, high-strung pets
The way Linda Tellington-Jones sees it one touch, done properly, is worth a thousand leash corrections, harsh words or pet-calming medicines.
She is the developer of the Tellington Touch (TTouch) a way of dealing with nervous, timid or slightly obnoxious pets that is gaining popularity with pet owners all over the world.
Using small, circular, light-as-a-feather strokes on an animal’s body, TTouch can instantly calm a dog terrified by thunder, navigate a frightened cat away from fear-biting, ease a high-strung horse into an accepting frame of mind and address scores of other animal issues.
It’s not complicated or particularly hard to learn, but it’s way more than regular, run-of-the-mill massage. “When you gently move the skin in a circle and a quarter several times and breathe in a certain way, there’s something appreciative that happens in an animal,” Tellington-Jones says.
“I think it’s a really fantastic therapy,” says Ann Davenport, Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region,Colorado Springs, Colo., (www.hsppr.org ) who brought in a TTouch practitioner a few months ago. “I was blown away by the immediate results it had on three particular cats, one of which went from being frozen with fear to relaxed and friendly.” So now she plans to get the volunteers trained in TTouch.
The TTouch effect is usually immediate, experts say, but it’s not a one-time fix. Depending on the animal and the problem, the results from a first session may last anywhere from a day to several weeks. TTouch should be used regularly and as often as needed.
Tellington-Jones and 1,300 practitioners travel the U.S. and 27 countries regularly to educate and train veterinarians, pet owners and promoters of animal welfare in the 30-year-old technique that calms and inspires confidence in all varieties of creatures, opening their minds and bodies to learning.
There are, in fact, TTouch training sessions every month in different states. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, the world biggest sanctuary for companion animals, has scheduled three five-day TTouch training sessions in Kanab, Utah this year, for example.
Tellington-Jones herself continues to do much of the training. She’ll start her 2008 rounds January 31, 2008, at Equine Affair, Pomona, Calif., and conclude with a lecture October 28, 2008, at Institute for Social Learning with Animals, Wedemark, Germany.
Becoming a recognized TTouch practitioner requires extensive training, but most pet owners can use the basics outlined in one of the many books Tellington-Jones has written on the subject. “Getting in TTouch With Your Dog” (Trafalgar Square Books, 2001) lists emotional and behavioral problems your dog may have, and which type of touch works best.
Linda Tellington-Jones, developer of the TTouch method of soothing anxious, high-maintenance pets through circular strokes on the animal's skin.
TTouch, Tellington-Jones says, is an actual movement and awakening of cells in the body. It helps “remind” the cells of their potential to function, she says. The touches, movements and exercises release tension in animals and increase their body awareness, eliminating the fear responses that often arise during training.
The seed was planted for TTouch in 1975 while Tellington-Jones was attending a seminar on a healing practice developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, a Ukrainian engineer who treated his own knee injury with an intense awareness of the body and its nervous system. He taught his Feldenkrais Method of healing worldwide.
Feldenkrais encouraged the use of gentle movements to help people overcome injury, pain and inflexibility, and “I had an epiphany,” says Tellington-Jones. “If it was true for humans, it must be true for horses.”
Tellington-Jones has a long history with horses. Her grandfather trained horses at the Moscow Hippodrome; she rode a horse to school as a child in Canada. Later, she and her first husband helped horses recover after long endurance competitions.
And so she first applied the concept of TTouch to the animals she knew best. It was called TTEAM (Tellington TTouch Equine Awareness Method), and by 1980 TTouch expanded to dogs, cats and other companion animals.
TTouch also incorporates special leash methods and provides suggestions for simple paths and labyrinths to help animals focus. The practice encourages using basic wraps and T-shirts for dogs that need to feel more secure.
Fifteen books on TTouch and TTEAM have been written, and 18 DVDs are available. A video clip of Tellington-Jones demonstrating the basics of TTouch has even been posted on YouTube (www.youtube.com/TellingtonTTouch).
The American Veterinary Medical Association, Schaumburg, Ill., does not specifically address TTouch, but acknowledges the growing popularity of alternative treatments and its guidelines state the organization “recognizes the interest in and use of these modalities and is open to their consideration.”
Tellington-Jones understands that some folks might find her approach a bit strange. “There’s got to be skeptics,” she says. “Why would you think little circles on an animal’s skin would do anything if you haven’t seen it for yourself?”
But the proof is in the animals’ reactions, she says. And anyone can get those results from TTouch, she adds, even children. Her Animal Ambassador program teaches TTouch to kids around the world.
She has, in fact, never encountered a person who can’t effectively learn it.
Some folks, she said, just need re-direction from habits such as kneeing a dog’s chest when he jumps up or tightening a choke chain when he pulls too hard on the leash. She’s careful to avoid criticizing the methods of other dog trainers, but believes fully that TTouch is the most effective way of teaching animals because it allows them to feel grounded and secure first.
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