This is Guinness, a 14 y/o GSD. His tilting head is due to vestibular syndrome that he began exhibiting in February. At his age, the resulting inactivity was of concern with atrophying muscles. I came to see my fur friend at his home and spent long time doing TTouches all over and around his ears to aid in neural connections. I also used some energy medicine to gently keep his leg muscles in working order and showed his Momma what and how to do the exercises. My main concern was in maintaining his mobility during this rather immobile time for him.
A couple weeks later, Guinness was able to go back to work with his people where I met him and touched base with how he was doing and we enjoyed some TTouch time.SIDNEY
This is Sidney, an adoptable GSD in foster care. I met her briefly at an adoption fair for GSD rescue and got to work with her. She (not surprisingly) has physical stresses which responded well to the TTouches. She was sporting a huge prong collar and was quite off balance and pulling heavily on the prong even when standing. I fashioned her lead into a TTouch balance lead and we simply stood while I gave Sidney subtle signals to put her more into balance and teach her to not lean into the prong. By the time I handed her back over to her foster person, she was standing in balance on a completely loose lead... that prong no longer digging into her neck. She also seemed much more calm and content.Sidney is available for adoption. She has issues with other female dogs, however I have complete confidence that TTouch would help her overcome many issues. A delightful young lady deserving of a forever home.
DORRIE
I have more recent pics of Lady Dorrie, but I'll be darned if I can locate 'em! Dorrie is a 5 y/o Golden with lots of stress issues. Her canine pal, is Cash.... an active Coonhound. I worked with Cash & Dorrie together at our last session. Both were remarkably calmer at our last session, which was rather noteworthy! Cash showed interest in the neighbor dog, but didn't go manic with pacing and barking. Dorrie was all over much more laid back. We did ground work with both dogs together and went over some new TTouches for both of them. Their progressive calm is really the highlight of their TTouch sessions.HARLEY
Harley is a 3 y/o West Highland Terrier. Harley is a super-duper sweetie who experiences shyness and/or reactivity with strangers or other selective issues, such as reluctance to foot handling. We've just had one session together thus far and he seems to be quite responsive to and liking of the TTouches. I'm looking forward to finding avenues to really help this little jewel soar!And then there's my own test subjects! ThunderShirts arrived and naturally I have been test driving them with my own crew. Nestle & Jazz both really appreciate these gentle body compression garments when the stress gets too great. Somewhere along the banks of the Tennessee River, someone enjoys target shooting (I HOPE they're shooting targets!) which sends both small dogs into shivering, stressed reactivity. ThunderShirts were a raving success each time, shaking stopped and though both dogs stayed close to me... they were much calmer.
Some dogs need time. Nestle has taught me that when it comes to "come"... some dogs need time to process this and carry out the activity. He will stop, think and then come a runnin'. Sometimes this can seem like an eternity, when it's usually less than a minute. I have to remember to not nag ("come", "come", .... etc.) and practice my patience during his processing time - and it pays off. With time, Nestle's "pauses" before coming are becoming shorter in duration. I give him the time to choose and when he chooses correctly, he's rewarded for it. He simply responds a little more slowly than some dogs. He reminds me that "instantaneous response" is an unfair expectation from each and every creature.... because they are as individual as we humans are.
