We attended a workshop to introduce us to touches and methods using Tellington T-Touch Training delivered by Caroline Still of Stylish Fido (https://stylishfido.co.uk/t-touch).
T Touch is not massage but involves a variety of touches manipulating the skin rather than the muscles below. Although the touches are light pressure, they can be very relaxing and powerful. However, like massage, the aim is to help resolve health and behaviour.
As well as bodywork, there are also a number of groundwork routines designed to aid flexibility, movement and increase confidence.
The touches themselves are named after animals, such as the Leopard, Chimpanzee, Racoon and Llama. These involve different placement of the fingers on the skin. As with massage therapy, the touches slide from one to another meaning the dog always has at least one hand on their body maintaining contact.
The groundwork is used to engage the dog’s attention and focus and involve slow and purposeful movements around objects or poles with frequent stops allowing the dog to experience their balance.
Another component is body wraps. This is similar to swaddling a baby giving the body security and a big hug. The aim is to provide comfort by making the dog aware of all the areas that the wraps touch. It is a great tool for nervous dogs and can be beneficial for Halloween and November 5th fireworks.
It’s always good to learn new principles and touches which can be adapted to add to our existing massage routines. We’ve never wanted to stop at just using the same few techniques but rather to constantly learn new moves to adapt and add. On Friday Chris went on a massage course designed for expectant Mums. He came back saying “Oooo…I’ve got a great move we can add to the AchyPaw routine”. As expectant Mums tend to prefer massage on their sides, this is similar to working on a dog lying down. We’ve adapted one of the moves to give a good myofascial release of the dog’s pectorals. That’ll go in our toolkit. Then there was the time Chris took a Hands-free massage course. Again, one of those moves we adapted into our exclusive Angel technique which gives the dog a huge long stretch along their entire body and most adore.
We’re going to need a bigger toolbelt soon.
We met Caroline Still of Stylish Fido some time ago at a dog event we were doing. She is professional Tellington T Touch practitioner (http://stylishfido.co.uk/t-touch). As she says on her webpage “Tellington T Touch is a holistic respectful method of training, handling and learning. Using a combination of specific touches, lifts, and movement exercises, T Touch helps to release tension and increase body awareness. This allows the animal to be handled without provoking typical fear responses. The animal can then more easily learn new and more appropriate behaviours. It is not about ‘quick fixes’, it is about working with that animal to bring a new awareness, offering another experience and giving new information, so the animal can be more flexible and adaptive, often having profound positive behaviour changes.”
She now has a young Poodle, Bill, and wanted me to check him out to make sure everything is OK physically. In return, I asked if she could do the same on our Sarah to give me some more ideas to help her.
The two different complementary therapies are, in fact, very similar. Most of the physical therapy massage moves I was demonstrating on Bill, were the same as T Touch moves, only with different names and different intensities. But despite the names, they had the same aims and benefits.
When it came to working with our Sarah, Caroline showed me small circular moves over her thigh muscles, called The Raccoon, which targeted them far more precisely. Within a short time, both the muscles we were working on, plus the other side, started to warm up. She also sent me some lifting moves which also target the thighs.
We’re attending one of Caroline’s workshops this weekend giving us even more tools in our Therapeutic Toolkit as you can never have too many options. That gives us massage techniques, advice, exercise routines, education, acupressure, Reiki and energy healing plus all the experience gained over the past 6 years added to the human massage techniques from the past 15 years and now T Touch. The AchyPaw Toolkit is getting bigger. And in the New Year we hope to have a new qualified and insured Canine Myotherapist joining the team.
